


5.13 Lovers' Leap

by William_Easley



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Ghosts, Monsters, Treasure Hunting, myths and legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 54,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/William_Easley/pseuds/William_Easley
Summary: In the first week of July 2017, Dipper and Wendy go on a search for a rumored treasure hidden in the sixteenth century by a Spanish prisoner and a beautiful native girl. Of course, the cave where the treasure is supposedly waiting is said to be haunted by ghosts and protected by monsters . . .. Complete in 25 chapters.





	1. The Rain Has Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.

**Lovers' Leap**

**By William Easley**

(July 2017)

* * *

_1: The Rain Has Gone_

The Fourth of July dawned drizzly and dreary, and though tourist traffic in the Shack was good, it didn't come within cash-register-drawer distance of a record. Soos was philosophical: "After the last couple weeks we had, it's like a dump in a bucket or some deal. I mean, we're already, like, way into the black for the summer. And when the sun comes out, business will pick up, wait and see."

On Wednesday the fifth, the sun did come out, though after the cool front had finally shoved the warm air eastward, the high was predicted to be only in the low eighties. That morning Dipper and Wendy did their run again, downtown because there would still be muddy stretches on their nature trail.

They hadn't lost much by laying off their running routine for a few days—they could still talk while running, though now and then they had to divide the conversation into short phrases to accommodate their breathing. The route they took was medium-strenuous. Even downtown they had to climb some hills, though nothing like the ones way back on their nature trail. The cool, fresh morning air helped a lot.

"Want to—drive over to—Portland with me—on Monday?" Dipper asked just as the sun peeked over the horizon.

"Why, what's up? Anything special?" Wendy asked as they passed Greasy's Diner, its windows yellow with light that would fade down as the dawn grew stronger. Lazy Susan was just opening up, and she threw open the main door, smiling at the clear sky.

She waved and yelled, "You two are so cute!"

Returning the wave with a grin but no answering yell, Dipper explained to Wendy, "Billy Sheaffer's—flying up alone to—spend the week. He's—gotta have somebody—who guarantees the airline—to meet him."

Wendy tossed him a short, sharp dart of a glance. "That a good idea? Him visiting?"

"I think he—needs to come up. He's got to—prepare for August 31—the same way I do. He just . . . doesn't know as much . . . as we do."

The thirty-first of August was going to be B-day in several different senses. First, of course, it was the Mystery Twins' Birthday—they were turning the big one-eight, technically adults. Then for Wendy it would be Bride's Day—she and Dipper planned to go to the City Hall and be married, quietly, in a private little civil ceremony with maybe just Dan, Dipper's parents and sister, and the two Grunkles in attendance. And then, too, it was Bye-bye Bill Day.

If what the Oracle and the Axolotl had told Dipper was true, the farewell to Bill had been inevitable since (to be specific) July 25, 2013, when Bill and Dipper had been forced into an uncomfortable alliance. Early in the morning of that day, five or six molecules of the original Bill Cipher had become lodged in Dipper's heart , which had been stopped by a vengeful interdimensional entity. Only Bill's sacrifice of the molecules re-started Dipper's pulse. And the sacrifice had been major, since Cipher had already been reduced to a tiny fragment of himself by Weirdmageddon, and he literally gave half of what he had left.

The donation, as Dipper understood it, was as an act of charity Cipher's first baby step on the long road to possible forgiveness and to a second chance at straightening out his immensely long, unbelievably messed-up existence.

However, now that infinitesimal little bit of Bill would pull out of Dipper and somehow manifest in the heart of Billy Sheaffer—Bill's human incarnation—who would be turning twelve that same day, his birthday was by happenstance on the same day as the twins'. Or maybe it had been some big plan that only beings on higher planes could understand. Either way, precisely what the coming sundering would do, well, Dipper did not know. No one did, except maybe the Oracle, who wasn't talking.

Twelfth birthdays, he thought. For some reason, they were real important. Twelve was a pivotal year in one's life.

When he and Mabel had been twelve, with literally no warning their parents somehow agreed to send them away for the summer—arbitrarily? Or was it planned out by their lonely Grunkle Stan? Or by someone or something else? Anyhow, one day Mom and Dad had told them they were going to the country for fresh air, exercise, and sunshine, and immediately they got backpacks jammed onto their shoulders, already-packed suitcases thrust into their hands, and before they really registered what was going on, there they were at the Piedmont bus station. At that point, neither Dipper nor Mabel knew even the name of the little Oregon town for which they were bound. For that matter, they were only vaguely aware that they had a Great-Uncle Stanford Pines somewhere.

And yet the moment they stepped off the Speedy Beaver bus the next day, a guy in a black suit, maroon fez, white shirt, and red string tie had rasped, "I'd know ya anywhere. Twin Pines! Ha! I'm you're great-uncle Stanford. Grab your stuff, I'm too old to carry anything heavier than money."

He'd cheerfully taken them into the Mystery Shack, had them lug their suitcases up to the attic—"You're gonna love it up there. I'll leave a baseball bat and some golf clubs you can use for your protection. Except any possums or raccoons get in, try to trap 'em alive. I need more exhibits."

And as soon as they had unpacked, and Mabel had discovered the joy of running her palm along a splintery beam, their Grunkle had yelled, "Kids! Get your butts downstairs! Work to be done!"

Mabel wound up polishing museum displays, and Dipper had to sweep the place out. They met the huge, friendly caretaker, Soos (Dipper mistakenly called him "Zeus" for a few hours) and the cashier, a tall, thin redheaded girl named Wendy (Dipper had first heard that as "Wanda," and was relieved to learn that she did NOT share his mother's name), who kept her feet propped on the counter and her freckled nose buried in a magazine called _Indie Fuzz_. Soos welcomed them with, "Hi, Maple, hi, Dipper. Welcome to Gravity Falls, like, the mysteriousest place on Earth!" Wendy had said, "Eh," and had kinda-sorta waved without looking at them.

So on their first day in Gravity Falls, Grunkle Stan swiftly melded them right into the workforce, and only a couple days after that, when Dipper was sent to hang signs for the Shack in the woods—_who'd come through the woods,_ he wondered—he'd come upon a strange metal tree with a hidden compartment and a device that opened a trap door, and inside that trap-door opening he'd found the musty, cobwebbed Journal 3. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and he'd made it without even trying or knowing he should look for something.

Indeed, everything seemed almost as if it happened as planned.

Very, very odd.

It was strange, to begin with, that their parents had agreed so readily to send them away for three months. That was not like Wanda Pines at all. She was the cautious one, the one committed to careful planning, who tried to foresee every possible problem and avoid every conceivable crisis. She herself had never once been to Gravity Falls. The last time she had even seen Grunkle Stan—believing him to be his brother Stanford, the responsible scientist—the twins had been about three years old. Yet she had agreed to let Dipper and Mabel go up to spend the summer with Stan immediately, if you could believe Grunkle Stan's story, and believing him might not be a good idea at that.

Dad, now, Alex Pines—Dipper understood him and his reasons. The Pines men shared a perhaps hereditary sense of family solidarity. Oh, sure, to hear Stan talk about it, the gene must have skipped Filbrick Pines's generation, but the others in the family had it. Because Stan was family (almost his last living blood relative), Alex would have trusted Stan implicitly. Maybe Alex had talked Wanda around to granting permission for that first, crucial summer getaway.

Or, Dipper thought, it could just possibly be that the Axolotl had somehow decreed that the twins must be in Gravity Falls that summer. Perhaps he—it, whatever—had foreseen Bill Cipher's ripping open the rift between dimensions. Possibly it had known that the vital number of Pines family members was four—that among them they would muster the courage and the determination to face Cipher and his minions, rally the survivors to their side, and take back the Falls.

As he and Wendy jogged round the water tower, though, Dipper glanced at his beautiful, long-legged fiancée, her arms pumping, chin high, a grin on her face in the fresh morning air, he thought _Accident or Grunkle Stan's plan or fate, I don't care. That summer we were twelve was the best one of my life. It brought me here, it let me meet Wendy, and now—_

Now he was even happier, if that were possible.

As they made the round of Circle Park, Wendy gave him another glance and asked, "Why are—you grinning—Dip?"

"Because—I'm running—with the woman—I love!"

"Aw. But—you're also—running—with the woman—who can flat beat you! Race you to—the Shack driveway!"

"Big talk, huh? You're on! We start—from the park—exit!"

Then he saved his breath. He wasn't much below the peak condition he'd been in as captain of the Piedmont High Varsity Track Team. And though the run they'd already done was way more than an ordinary warm-up, he felt sure he had the sprint to the driveway in him. It would be uphill and a much longer one than a hundred meters, but—

They stepped over the park boundary together and broke into a full run. Though Dipper and Wendy were equally tall now—or almost, she might have a half-inch on him—her legs were longer. She opened up like a young antelope taking joy in each half-flying step. They both leaned into the run.

With three miles at a comparatively easy pace already under his belt, Dipper felt his second wind take hold nearly at once. The two of them raced up the shoulder of the highway, startling a squirrel that scrambled away and up and scolded them from the safety of a pine. Without losing speed, they sprinted up the long, hard grade, past first Grunkle Ford's and then Grunkle Stan's driveway, and to the dwarf rhododendron patch and the big wooden sign that asked the rhetorical question _What Is the Mystery Shack_?

And they stepped over the theoretical finish line at the same split second.

"Whoo!" Wendy said, gasping. "That—was—awesome, man!"

"Did—you—let—me—tie?" Dipper asked.

They had slowed to a walk, and to save their breath, the held hands and communicated mind-to-mind.

_You know better, Dip! I was really going all-out. Did you hold back for me?_

—_Ha! No, I didn't. I was pushing my limits. If I hadn't been on the track team for four years in high school, you would have left me in the dust._

_Yeah, I guess I'm not too shabby at running, considering I wasn't on any team, ever._

—_You didn't answer me earlier. You willing to go over to Portland with me and Mabel?_

_Oh, Mabes is going, too?_

—_You know she wouldn't stay home. Billy kinda crushes on her, and she thinks it's cute._

_Dip, let's walk down the Mystery Trail a ways to cool off. Yeah, she's told me. Sure, I'll go to the airport with you. Take your car? It's got more room for luggage and all._

—_Sure. Want to take turns driving?_

_Dude, I love to drive your Land Runner! Sure. Maybe I can get a sense of what's off about the engine. I dunno, might be the idler tension on your timing belt or something._

—_Nothing shows up on the codes._

_Yeah, but there's still something just a little tiny bit off. I swear I'll find it and fix it before the end of the summer!_

—_See, that's why my Dad's in love with you._

_Too bad for him. I'm taken._

They turned and strolled back to the Shack. They had a little more than an hour before opening time—they showered and dressed, made breakfast for themselves—and then for Mabel, who'd become an earlier riser since Tripper slept in her room and jumped up on the bed to lick her face when he was ready for his morning walk.

Before they had finished, Abuelita came in, bringing little Harmony, who toddled around singing part of "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" in an endless loop while Abuelita prepared breakfast for everyone else.

And then Soos, Melody, and Little Soos showed up and they settled in for breakfast and another day of business at the Shack.

That evening, as they sat out on the porch and looked at the stars—bright and sharp with the cool front clearing the clouds out—Dipper said, "Want to go camping Saturday night? We'd have to be back at the Shack early on Monday 'cause we'll need to leave for the airport around mid-morning."

"Yeah, I'm up for it. Mabel and Teek too?"

"Let's . . . just make it us," Dipper said.

"OK, what's the deal?"

Dipper shrugged. "Probably nothing. But ever since I found Great-Uncle Stanford's mention of the lost treasure of Kiesano, I've been researching it and I think I might know roughly where it might be."

"Oh, that Spanish deal?" Wendy asked. "I sort of remember your talking about it, but I think maybe I'd had a little too much beer that night. That was the time we drove out to the lake and skinny-dipped, right?"

"I don't remem—oh, heck, I'm not gonna lie, yes, of course I remember. It was that night, yes. Nearly exactly a year ago now. And I remember every second of that evening."

Wendy snuggled against him. "Mm-hmm, and every inch of me, right?"

"Well—if you put it that way."

She laughed. "Hope we still have fun like this after we're married. So what have you learned about the treasure, and how did Spanish pirate gold or whatever wind up way north of Mexico, here in Gravity Falls?"

"It's a long story," Dipper said. "Have you ever heard an old legend called Lovers' Leap?"


	2. The Declaration of Luis Pacallo y Nuñez

**Lover's Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_2\. The Declaration of Luis Pacallo y Nuñez_

"Here we go," Dipper said, showing Wendy the pages in the thick photocopy of Stanford's Journal 5. "Great-Uncle Ford still hasn't had time to go any further with this. Let's see . . . wish he'd number the pages . . . yeah, here it is. Read this and then we'll talk."

"This is like Homework, the Date," Mabel commented from the sidelines.

"Mabes," Wendy said, "this nerd book just might make you and your brother rich. Let me read it."

"Yeah, not holding my breath here. I'm gonna go toss Tripper's ball for him," Mabel said.

Tripper's perky ears perked even more, he ran from the parlor into the hall, and then came scrambling back gripping his favorite ball.

"Let's go, Slugger," Mabel said. "When I get back, you guys can summarize for me."

"Deal," Dipper said.

Wendy said, "At least Dr. P.'s handwriting is pretty legible. Translated from Spanish, huh? Let's see."

And she started to read:

* * *

_Note by Stanford Pines: The following account, written in ink evidently made from berry juice on irregular scraps of parchment, was discovered in 1940 when work on Howland Road was being done by the WPA._

_A dynamite blast uncovered a tarnished bronze cylinder, about a foot long and two inches in diameter. The cap was corroded to the threads. The foreman of the construction crew did not know what it was and turned the cylinder over to the Historical Society. For more than a decade it remained in storage there._

_In the early 1950s, someone hacksawed the end off the cylinder and discovered the writings, in old-fashioned Spanish. I was permitted to make a photographic copy of the material in 1980. This year I finally translated them and will record my efforts here in my Journal. Some of the readings are conjectural—despite the protection, some of the ink had faded almost to nothing, and the fragile parchment had suffered oxidation since 1951 or 52, when the cylinder was opened._

_-March 2014_

* * *

1-The year is 1541. Of that I am certain. The month, I think, is either June or July. Endless wandering, periods of illness, and times of weakness and starvation caused me to lose track of time.

My name is Luis Alvarado Pacallo y Nuñez, of Málaga, where my father Esteban is a chandler and merchant. I know not whether he lives still. I pray that should any kind stranger discover this declaration, let him convey to my native city the news of my fate, for the comfort it might bring my father and my mother.

Thirteen years ago, I sailed with Captain Alvar Cabeza de Vaca to the New World. We met with misery and deprivation, and I believe that all but I have perished_ (This is not true. Alvar Cabeza de Vaca and two shipmates actually survived hurricanes, shipwreck, captivity by natives and other troubles to be rescued in Mexico after eight years of wandering and eventually returned to Spain in 1537.—Stanford Pines)._

I was the youngest surviving member of the crew, only 16 years of age. During a fight with the natives, I was clubbed and, I am certain, left for dead. I recovered my wits, however, and tried to follow my fellow crewmen; only I was captured by some natives.

There is no time nor space for me to tell how time after time I was sold by one tribe to another, always westward. After eleven years, and still a slave, I found myself on the coast of the great southern ocean _(i.e., the Pacific, named by Magellan in the year 1519. Pacallo might not have known that.—Stanford Pines)._

2-I am slow at learning languages. I did learn to speak the tongue of the people who now claimed to own me. They spoke to me of more men like me, and their description led me to understand that a Spanish ship had wrecked near a great bay, and that some men had survived.

I begged to be taken there. It was a long way north, the people said, and the strangers must be dead by now. Still I yearned to see them, and at last I stole some food and one night after a year of waiting, I fled into the darkness, heading north along the coast.

How many days I marched I do not know. A great many. The food ran out. I caught fish sometimes, and sometimes I killed small game with a sling, at which I had become adept.

3-One cold morning I came in sight of a bay, and I saw on the rocks the wreckage of a European ship. With hope in my heart, I approached.

Only three men still lived. They did not welcome me. They were Spanish, but I gathered they were pirates from their rough talk and especially because they jealously guarded a small chest.

They were laboring to build a small craft, hoping to follow the coast to the south until they reached Mexico. They used me as a slave, as my captors had done—but they wanted me to make the dangerous journey out to their wrecked craft to fetch back nails and timber. The sea was frigid, and I thought I would soon surely die.

4-But after some weeks of this hard work, when the little sloop had taken form and needed only to be decked and rigged, I came back from the wreck, now reduced to a heap of soaked wood, to find all three of the men dead.

I do not know what caused it, but they had fought among themselves. I opened the chest they had always guarded so carefully and discovered a treasure: a tiara studded with emeralds, rubies, and pearls, gold coins of Spain and other countries, ornamental daggers, and I know not what else.

With no desire to remain, I rigged the little boat as best I could—it took a week—and open as it was, I launched it upon an ebb tide.

5-I had little in the way of provisions, but adequate fresh water in kegs. My aim had been the same as the pirates', to sail south. God and the weather were against me, and a dreadful strong wind made me instead run up the coast northward. I dared not sleep, for I had to fight my way among huge waves and the terrible wind.

I had no instruments of navigation, merely a brass spyglass and a couple of knives, no firearms. Twice I sheltered in coves, but when a calm fell and I set out, always the same tempest sprang up. At last, with food low, I put into the mouth of a huge river, which provided a great bay with many islands _(The Columbia, presumably.—Stanford Pines)._

Spring had come, but I had fallen ill of an ague. Encamped in a lean-to on the mainland, I ate the last of my food—dried fish and meat—and then went inland, trying to find sustenance or aid. Alas, once more I was captured. The natives did not take anything from me—they thought I was possessed by a spirit and untouchable. I had concealed in my rags a leather bag with as much of the treasure as I could carry, including the tiara and some dozens of gold coins. I had the idea that I might trade it for food, but there was no need.

6-For about two years the natives fed me, but then with others they went on a march to the east and south. Sick as I was, they insisted I go with them. I could not understand what they were doing, but I gathered they were a war party and that they wanted to slay a gigantic bear or other monstrous creature that they regarded as a menace. We came to this valley, a great circular expanse of hills, streams and trees_ (Gravity Falls Valley?—Stanford Pines)._ The war party went forth, leaving me in camp with their womenfolk.

7, reverse side of 6-One of them, a girl perhaps seven or eight years younger than I, had attended me, fetched me food when I was ill, and had showed evidences of being fond of me. As I gradually learned a few words of their language, and she gradually learned some Spanish, I discovered that her name was Spring Fawn, or something like that. And she did confess her love for me. At the camp in the round valley, I promised her that, should we run away together, I would somehow take her to my home far over the waters and make her my wife.

8-The war party was away for a month. When they returned, much reduced in number—three score went forth, fifteen returned—they proposed to rest. I could not understand whether or not they had slain their bear. They spoke fearfully of monstrous things that lived nearby, spirits and creatures unlike anything else on earth.

The men all went to forage the next day. While the women of the camp wailed and mourned for the lost warriors, Spring Fawn and I slipped away. She knew of a cave where, she said, we could hide.

It was halfway up a perilous cliff. We reached it, though I was weak and faint and the climb was difficult. Today we have been here for a week. Spring Fawn's people have missed us, and we can look down and see them as they rove through the forests trying to find us. I am writing this brief account as she and I prepare to flee. We shall leave the treasure here in this cave. We will try to climb to the very summit of the towering cliffs and find a safe hiding place until the hunters give up their quest.

9-I will seal this account in the bronze tube that held my spyglass and take it with me. Should we perish, and should some European find this, please send word to my father and mother. Now we go, and may God be with us in our fearful flight. I commend my soul to Him, for I have an evil premonition that Spring Fawn and I will die.

* * *

_Concluding remarks by Stanford Pines:_

_The parchment pages were unnumbered, and I have assembled the story in a way that seems to make sense, though I could be mistaken. I have labeled the photographs of the sheets 1-9; one of them has been written on front and back. The paragraphs are marked accordingly, though my assembly of the sheets into a whole may be wrong._

_I am half motivated to try to locate the cave. However, the Valley has many dozens, and I have no idea where to begin. The cylinder was found on the north side of the river, three miles east of the lake, where the hills rise steeply to the bluffs, but it might have come from anywhere._

_I wonder if the story can be linked to the old Chinook legend of "Lovers' Leap." Perhaps not, because that is one of the most common motifs of Native American lore—the mismatched lovers who, pursued by one or the other of their tribes, make a desperate suicide leap together. Note to self: Look up Wishram's _Lore and Legends of the Chinook Peoples._ I seem to remember reading the account there of Stranger and Little Doe, which just might relate to the tale on the parchments._

_When I have some clear time, I will locate a copy of Wishram's volume and re-read the tale._

* * *

Wendy closed the book. "Not much to go on," she said. "But, yeah, there's a Lover's Leap place in the Valley. Least, that's what people have always called it. Never heard of a story to go with it though."

"I've got that book on Chinook legends on request from interlibrary loan," Dipper told her. "I don't know if the local library can get it, though—it's a rare book. Closest library that has a copy is Willamette University in Salem."

"Think we could see it if we drove there?" Wendy asked.

Dipper shook his head. "Maybe. I don't know how strict they are. Great-Uncle Stanford could swing it, but I don't know if we could."

"Yeah, but what if we've got a letter from him on the Institute letterhead saying we're his research assistants?" Wendy asked.

Dipper grinned. "You're going to make a great Pines. You're already thinking like Grunkle Stan!"


	3. Shhh!

**Lover's Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_3: Shhh!_

The postponed Fourth of July picnic was to take place at the Mystery Shack on Saturday, July 8. And uncharacteristically, Dipper and Wendy would miss half of it.

It wasn't as if Soos would need them—he had plenty of help these days, including Teek, Gideon, and Ulva, along with both Grunkles and their wives. Still, Dipper felt a little guilty that morning when he and Wendy set off before eight A.M. for the two-hour drive to Salem. He told Wendy as much.

They were in the Green Machine, with Wendy at the wheel, expertly negotiating the curving highway as they entered the Cascade foothills. They took state route 126, which hooked sharply south at one point, entering the McKenzie River Gorge, and sometimes Dipper could see bluffs on both sides of them, close to the highway on the right, across the river on the left. They reminded him of the Gravity Falls bluffs, except they were weathered down to gentler slopes and were mostly evergreen-clad.

"Pretty scenery," Wendy observed.

"Kind of scary in parts, though," Dipper said. He was wearing his black Mr. Mystery suit with a normal tie—medium blue—and black shoes polished to as high a shine as he could manage. Wendy was in her professional outfit, tan slacks, white blouse, green blazer. She was also wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, though the lenses were just panes of ordinary glass, with no correction.

Both of them were striving to look like research assistants. Dipper thought he'd about nailed it, though he'd omitted the glasses. Wendy—well, as far as he was concerned, she'd always look beautiful and never, ever nerdy, no matter what she wore.

They found the University on State Street, then—as the GPS on Dipper's phone advised—took Bellevue to Winter, and from Winter they turned into the visitors' parking lot. Always the planner, Dipper had gone online to purchase a temporary parking permit, and they found plenty of spaces.

They parked the Dodge Dart, climbed out, and looked around. "Which way?" Wendy asked, adjusting her spectacles. She gave Dipper a look over the top rims. "What?"

"Can't help it," Dipper said, blushing and grinning at the same time. "That just makes you look so—um—sexy."

"Let's hope the librarian's a guy, then," she said cheerfully. "Which way?"

"Um—well, toward the center of campus, so I guess between those buildings?"

They didn't need to hurry. They found the library just as it was opening for the day. It was a handsome red-brick building with a brick and glass clock tower close to the entrance.

A notice told them that the library hours were from ten in the morning to nine in the evening, and that no reference librarian was available on Saturdays, but one of the circulation librarians examined their credentials—Ford's helpful letter-and was glad to help. When they explained what they wanted, she murmured, "Wishram, Edward, _Lore and Legends of the Chinook Peoples. _Let me check something."

She clicked away at a keyboard and studied the screen. "Yes, that one's in rare books, but it's also been digitized. Would you like to see the electronic version?"

"Will we be able to print out pages if they contain what Dr. Pines is researching?" Wendy asked primly.

"Let me see . . . publication date 1875, Wishram died in 1888, so it's public domain. That's fine, Miss Corduroy. I'll show you which machine to use and how to buy copies."

And from there it was easy-peasy, as Wendy observed. They accessed the digital version of the book—the volume from which it had been scanned was obviously a somewhat worn one, but the print was clear and, in fact, larger than life, because the original book measured five by seven inches, and the images were about seven by ten, printed out.

Unfortunately, the digital version was not searchable—it was a simple scan—but they fast-forwarded to the Index and found the story of "Lovers' Leap" on pages 57-60. As they printed out those four pages, Dipper noticed a cross-reference to the tale entitled "The Man from the Sea (the First Ship)", which was another short one, and he printed it out as well.

They had finished their research by ten-thirty. They thanked the librarian, took their seven pages of copied material, and left for home.

"Want to stop somewhere for lunch?" Wendy asked as they walked to the car.

"No, let's wait and eat at the picnic," Dipper said.

"Good idea. I'll feel so guilty eating when we didn't raise a finger to help cook or set the picnic up, though," Wendy said. "No, wait, I said that wrong. I'll love it!"

"Want me to drive?" Dipper asked.

"Nah, I'm good. I know you're itching to read that stuff. Tell you what: Once we're out of town and on the highway, read it aloud. That will bring us both up to speed."

"Deal."

* * *

And so when they were once again in the river valley, heading east this time—and dealing with much lighter traffic—Dipper said, "I think maybe this thing about the man from the sea should be first. It sounds like it might be a recollection of Luis Pacallo's arrival in Oregon. Hmm. OK, Wishram translates place names in notes, but I'll just read it as if the place names are the ones we're familiar with. Let me see . . . here."

And he read:

* * *

_A woman's only son, a fine young warrior, died in a fight on the shore of Youngs Bay. Every day for a whole year the woman walked on the shore there and lamented her son's death. One morning she saw something unfamiliar on the shore. She thought it was a whale, but when she came close, she saw a creature climbing out of it. It was furred like a bear but had a man's face. The woman was frightened and ran to her village to tell the chief._

_The chief said, "Let us go and see what this creature is." He took six of his warriors. They found on the shore a boat made of wood. They discovered that it was held together by iron nails. They had never seen iron before. They dragged the boat far up on the shore and burned it. From the ashes they took nails, which they used as spear points._

_Soon other tribes heard and sent men to trade for the iron nails. The village grew very rich._

_After some time, a party of hunters came across a man wearing furs. He was a white man and they thought him touched by Bluejay. Bluejay is a capricious god, and those made mad by him are feared but protected. They thought this man was mad because he could not speak but made strange sounds as though he were trying to form words._

_They took the man from the sea into the village. The chief's own family cared for him. It is said that the chief's beautiful daughter, Tachimo ("Young Fawn") came to love the man they called Chicha-ko ("Stranger"). The tribe honored him because he had brought iron and made them rich._

* * *

"Not much on plot, was old Wishram?" Wendy asked. "You think that's our guy, Pacallo?"

"Maybe," Dipper said. "Since his story—if Grunkle Ford translated it from Spanish right—called the Chinook girl "Spring Fawn" and this tale refers to "Young Fawn," I guess it's possible. It does sound kind of like Pacallo's story. Where is Youngs Bay, do you know?"

"Nope. There's a Youngs River, though. It joins up with the Columbia right down at the ocean."

"Hang on," Dipper said, using his phone to check the internet.

"Dude you're gonna run your data charges crazy high doing that," Wendy warned.

"I've never used up all my hours," Dipper murmured. "OK, here it is—Youngs River meets the Columbia River between Astoria and Warrenton."

"I know where that is," Wendy said. "Northwest of Portland, on the Pacific. So it sounds about right."

"We'll see what Grunkle Ford thinks. Hm, hm . . ."

"What're you looking up now?"

"Bluejay."

"As in the bird, or the—"

"Here we go. Blue Jay—two words here—is a trickster in the mode of Coyote. The Chinook people see him as basically benevolent, but mischievous, careless, and dangerous even to those he helps. Their legends stress the importance of not angering or upsetting him."

"So what about the Lovers' Leap story?"

"Here it is. Listen."

* * *

_The Tatchlaki, the Chagga, and the Tsolaki tribes all agreed to seek out and kill the Ghost Bear that wandered far and sometimes stole their food or killed their children in the night. They took a strong band of a hundred warriors east across the mountains. With them they took women to cook and to heal their wounds._

_Now, the chief of the Tatchlaki, the people later called the Kiesano, who lived near the Great Water, had a daughter he loved very much. She had just left childhood and become a young woman. She was in love with a stranger the tribe had taken in. The chief disapproved of the match._

_For many weeks the band hunted the Ghost Bear. They killed game, and the women prepared it. Each day they searched farther in the wilderness. Then the tribe's wise man advised the chief, "Ghost Bear is surely in the Valley of Ghosts. There many powerful and fierce monsters dwell. It is best not to seek Ghost Bear there, where he is strongest."_

_But the three chiefs were determined to find and kill Ghost Bear, for their people had suffered much from his depredations. And so they passed through the Death Gate, an opening in sheer cliffs, and came into the great valley they called the Valley of Ghosts._

* * *

Dipper scanned ahead. "It tells about how the warriors fought three monsters. One sounds like it might have been a Manotaur—"a horned demon that walked upright like a man"—and another one is some kind of water monster—"

"Gobblewonker?" Wendy asked.

"Can't tell. It seized warriors when they were near a great waterfall and dragged them under and drowned them. Anyway, the last one was the Ghost Bear, a giant bear that was hard to injure with spears and arrows. It killed a good many of the warriors, but they wounded it and drove it away. They still didn't know if it was fatally wounded. Now, here we go."

* * *

_The Chief of the Tatchlaki told the women of his tribe, "See, of forty of our warriors, only a dozen are left alive. From this day forth, let us call our people Kiesano, remembering our sorrow. Lament for our dead. Cut your hair and bathe in the water. Every day remember the dead and say their names. We must remain in this valley until we are certain the Ghost Bear is dead. Until then, every day bathe and call the names of the dead."_

_But that night the chief's daughter and the outsider she loved, the man her father regarded as mad and of no worth, slipped away from camp. And the next day the chief was furious and ordered his people to track down the fugitives, but the other warriors set out to find the Ghost Bear, and the chiefs of the other two tribes were angry because the twelve warriors of the Tatchlaki chief did not join their hunt._

_Now for one, two, three, and four days and nights they hunted; and for five, six and seven more days they hunted; and on the eighth night they spied the two lovers high on a cliff (for the Valley of Ghosts is ringed around with unclimbable bluffs). And the chief and four of his warriors climbed; and the two lovers fled._

_But they came to a point where the ledge they were on ended. And the chief called out, angrily, and ordered his daughter to come to him; and the man, he said, would be pierced with spears._

_But the two of them held hands and before a spear could be cast, they leaped to their deaths, falling from a great height._

_And then the chief was troubled, and fearful; and he and his people left the valley and did not return. And the warriors of the other tribes did not ever return, and the people say that the Ghost Bear took them._

_And the ghost of the stranger and the ghost of the chief's daughter now dwell in the Valley of Ghosts, where never can they be parted._

* * *

"Sounds like we nailed it," Wendy said. "But, yeah, see what Dr. P. says. If that tale is true, then maybe the part about the treasure's true, too."

"The trouble is we don't know where the Lovers' Leap was," Dipper said. "The cave would have to be pretty close to it."

"Tomorrow we'll go camping," Wendy said. "I'll show you the place they call the lovers' leap. That will be a start, anyway."

"Sounds good to me," Dipper said.

"Hey, you want me to wear my nerd costume?" Wendy asked. "Since you think it's sexy?"

"Just be yourself," Dipper said, laughing. "That's sexy enough for me."


	4. Food and Fireworks

**Lover's Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_4: Food and Fireworks_

The picnic was in such full swing that, in the end, Wendy reversed out of the Shack driveway—it was narrowed to barely a car width by cars parked on each side—and they parked down the hill, in front of Stan and Sheila's house, where about five other cars had the same idea. They walked uphill along the path—now well-established—through the screen of pines, hearing the raucous sounds of laughter (Dipper easily picked out Manly Dan's deep, booming "Aw-haw!"), a chatter of conversation, and the shrieks of kids. They also caught the delicious aromas of burgers, franks, and barbecue.

Wendy's older brother, Junior, in overalls, red checked shirt, and black bowtie, saw them first as they emerged. "Where you two been?" he bawled loudly enough to make Dipper wince. "This here's my fiancée, Thelma!"

Blinking and wondering if that was the same fiancée as last year, Dipper said hello to the tall, muscular-looking girl, who wore her blond hair in twin braids that fell across her shoulders and down to her waist. "Get some of the ribs!" she advised. "They're going fast!"

As they walked through the crowd, greeting Grenda—her wedding was coming up later in the year, but Marius didn't seem to be with her—and Candy, who was there with Adam. Lee surprised Dipper by calling, "Yo! Doctor Fun Times!" He looked more like a surfer dude than ever. Wendy stopped to chat with him and catch up, and Dipper said, "I see Great-Uncle Stanford. I'll be right back."

Stanford had traded his normal outfits for jeans and—of all things—a long-sleeved Hawaiian shirt, bright red with pale yellow hibiscus flowers. He was holding a glass of lemonade, and he raised it as he caught sight of Dipper. "Mason!" he said. "Where have you been?"

"Uh—could we go in and talk for just a minute?" Dipper asked. "I think you might want to hear this."

"Of course."

People were milling around in the gift shop, where Melody was manning the register, so instead of going down to Ford's lab, they climbed up to the attic bedroom. Ford sat in Dipper's desk chair and Dipper sat on the edge of the bed as he told his great-uncle what he and Wendy had been up to that morning.

"Excellent," Ford said, laughing. "Now I understand why the two of you wanted a letter identifying you as research assistants. May I see the print-outs?"

Dipper handed the pages over. "Yes," Ford said. "I recall reading Wishram when I first came out to the Coast. Remarkable man, very patient. Well, there's no overt links between the Man from the Sea story and the Lovers' Leap story, but I wouldn't be surprised if Pacallo wasn't the stranger in the fur suit. The two Chinook tales do dovetail neatly with the old parchment manuscript."

"Do you know where the bronze tube was found? The one with Pacallo's parchments in it?"

Ford polished his glasses and frowned in concentration. "I should know that. The docent at the Historical Society—old Jeffries, who died during my absence from this particular dimension, may he rest in peace—was a cricket of a man, skinny and lively and chirpy, and he knew everything about everyone. Do you know the old Howard Road?"

"I think so," Dipper said. Wendy had once taken him for a perilous drive. It hugged the bluffs and had been blasted and paved back at the end of the Depression, leading up to the Howard Mine, which had gone out of business within three or four years of the road's completion. Now only a few people lived up that way, and the road was weathering away to oblivion. It lacked guard rails, the shoulders tended to crumble without warning, and teens sometimes used it for a more private parking area than Lookout Point.

"I wish I could remember exactly," Ford muttered. Somewhere west of the lake, I recall. Not as far as the western bluffs, but somewhere along the southern ones. There was a natural crevice in the rock there, and when they were dynamiting, the cylinder flew out with about a ton of shattered rock. One of the road crew found it—Jim Two Bears, I think his name was—and turned it over to Travis Philips, the foreman, who gave it to Mr. Jeffries for the History Museum. I'll ask Lorena if she can locate any information in the Museum records about its provenance."

The door opened, and Wendy said, "So there you are. Hi, Dr. P. Dipper filling you in?"

"You should have seen her as a research assistant," Dipper said. "Put on the glasses."

Wendy rolled her eyes, but she took the spectacles out of her pocket and put them on. "I represent Academia," she said in a kind of sultry-scholarly voice.

"You certainly look the part!" Ford said. "Congratulations on finding that rare book. I wish I hadn't sold my own copy. It might be quite valuable now!"

"Well," Dipper said, "that's where we are now."

"And let me guess the rest," Ford said, rising. "You're going to see if you can locate the exact spot of Lovers' Leap, work backward from there to find the cave, and try to discover the treasure. Correct?"

"That's . . . pretty much the idea," Dipper said.

"Very well. Keep me informed, let me know if you need any help, and above all, take precautions and don't put yourselves in danger. I gather from Pacallo that the cave is hard to access, that the drop from the only trail up to it is potentially fatal, and that it will probably prove devilishly difficult to find."

"And don't forget the ghosts that guard it," Wendy said. "And monsters."

"I'm sure that the ghosts and monsters are merely fanciful embroideries to make the story more intriguing," Ford said. Then he paused for a second. "Let's say I'm relatively sure. After all, this is Gravity Falls! Congratulations on your success so far, and good luck on the quest, but for right now—let's go have some lunch!"

* * *

The ribs were pretty good—Bud Gleeful, of all people, cooked them. And after the food, for a while everyone sat around digesting and getting ready for the games. Somehow—Dipper was unsure about it even as he agreed—Mabel talked Dipper into bringing down his guitar. He went for the acoustic model and sat on the porch and played.

He did a few requests, though more than once he had to shrug and say, "Sorry, don't know that one."

But when Mrs. Wiesenhunt, who was elderly, said she'd sing "The White Cliffs of Dover" if Dipper would back her up, he had her sing the first part and then came in with soft chords to back her up. Much to his surprise, she had a lovely voice, untouched by time, and people—including an enthusiastic Stan—applauded her when she finished. Then someone said, "Hey, Elsie, how about 'We'll Meet Again?'"

Dipper actually knew that song—but he saw Ford abruptly turn and walk away around the house. And he knew why.

But he accompanied Elsie Wiesenhunt,who sang so sweetly and sadly that Manly Dan Corduroy broke down in tears, and it took a crowd to try to comfort him, so to ease the mood, he played a couple of his own songs as instrumentals—"Cold Creek," "I Will Always Believe in Fairy Tales," and "Shadows and Night," which somehow managed to be both faintly creepy and romantic.

Lee said, "Hey, you did Robbie's song! Cool!"

"Actually," Wendy said easily, "Dip wrote 'Cold Creek.' Robbie and Tambry and the Tombstones put it on their album, though."

"You wrote it?" Lee asked.

"Yep," Dipper said.

"No way! I mean, I believe you, but that's so freaking cool, man!" Lee high-fived him, and Dipper played a few of Robbie's own songs—not the death-metal ones, but some of the more relaxed and some of the more rocking ones, because Robbie Valentino really was a talented musician whose range was more than most of his fans would guess.

Somebody yelled, "Three-legged race!" and Dipper put away his guitar. He and Wendy once again won that event—easy for them, since their touch telepathy kept them in perfect step with each other—and though Wendy declined to climb the greased pole ("I'm goin' out later!"), they cheered on her brother as he made it all the way to the top.

"He cheats," Wendy said confidentially. "See how he put his hand in his pockets before he started? He's got sand in there!"

Even so, climbing a thirty-foot pole slathered with machine grease was an accomplishment to applaud. Continuing the family streak, Dan tossed a caber—he wasn't Scottish, but somebody had introduced that to the games the previous year, and Dan figured he might have a go at it. He went first and threw it so far that the other four contestants immediately gave up.

Mabel did surprisingly well in the relay race, the one where you put your forehead on the butt of a golf club and then spun around until you could barely stand up. Unfortunately, though she made it to Teek and handed him the baton, he ran in almost a circle before falling down and losing his lunch.

"How does Mabel even do that?" Wendy asked Dipper.

"She's had a lot of practice being dizzy," Dipper said.

The party began to break up around six, the normal closing time for the Shack, as people left for home, dinner, and then the trip to the lake for the delayed fireworks.

The Pines family would have leftovers, of course. There were plenty. Teek went home and changed clothes and returned for the evening meal, but no one ate very much, since everyone was still full from the picnic.

Dipper found a moment to apologize to Ford for the song. His great-uncle had told him of the nightmarish appearance of Bill Cipher playing the piano and crooning part of the old World War II-era song.

"Not your fault," he'd said. "I should resent Cipher. That song was one of my mom's favorites. The singer Vera Lynn made it famous. I always found it a tune that made me feel, well, sorrowful. Find a recording of the original version and listen to it, Mason. The lyrics say loved ones will meet again, but everyone who heard it had to think of the reality of war, when many of those young men and women going off to fight would never meet their sweethearts or family again. It's a song of defiant hope in the face of hopelessness. And I'm afraid Cipher rather ruined it for me."

"Ruined what, Poindexter?" asked Stan, who had ambled out onto the porch with two beers. "Here ya go. Drown your sorrows in your annual beer."

"Rimrock?" Ford asked, accepting the frosty bottle. "Well—not my favorite brand, but—to you, Stanley."

"Right back at you, Stanford." They clinked bottles and drank. "So what were you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just an old song," Ford said. "The one Mom liked so much."

"Oh, this one?" Stanley hummed the opening bars—on-key, but his voice was like a musical buzz saw. "Yeah. Cousin Paul told me they played that at her, you know, memorial service."

"Which you didn't attend."

"Couldn't," Stan said harshly. "Everybody thought I was dead, and I was being you, remember. I could fool everybody in Gravity Falls. Fool Alex and Wanda, even. But back there—not a chance. Yeah, it was hard on me, too. Dip, take a clue: Never take family or people you love for granted. You just never know."

"I'm sorry I played the song," Dipper said.

"Nah, Elsie's got a good set of pipes, and since this is kinda an ersatz Fourth of July, it was good to remind everybody of the men and women who kept the country free. It's good to have a little bit of schmaltz now and then. So you and Wendy goin' to the lake?"

"For the fireworks," Dipper said. "But we'll park so we can leave as soon as they're over. We're going camping tonight and tomorrow."

"Up to something, huh?" Stan said. "Nah, don't tell me, I know you are. You two be careful, though. So far this summer we've had barely any real bad monsters. We're due."

"We'll be careful," Dipper promised.

* * *

They packed the trunk of Wendy's car with tent, provisions, and one or two other things and as twilight fell, they drove out to the lake, parked close to the highway, and walked down to the shore. A crowd had already gathered.

When dark had come and the first skyrocket screamed up and exploded into a golden galaxy, the two of them kissed. It wasn't exactly an anniversary, but close enough.

_Happy first-kiss anniversary, fiancé._

—_Happy anniversary, Magic Girl._

_Can't say the magic word? What's the matter with you?_

—_Sorry. I know what you want to hear. Happy anniversary—Red!_

Wendy nearly choked with laughter. "You rat!"

"I didn't mean to upset my fiancée," he said softly.

"Straight up—was that you? Or Bill?"

"That one was all me. I was just teasing."

"That's OK," she said. "I'll get you back in the tent tonight."

"Uh-oh. What are you going to do?"

"You," she said with a fond but somewhat malicious enjoyment, "will find out soon enough."

The whole sky erupted in thunderous explosions and delirious light.


	5. Off the Road

**Lover's Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_5: Off the Road_

Somewhat to Dipper's alarm, Wendy left the road around midnight. "Uh—is this OK?" he asked

"Yeah, think so. Ground's pretty firm, nearly level. But when I park, I'll turn the car around so tomorrow morning it won't be a hassle."

"I thought we were going to camp—"

"We are, on South Beach. I've been this way before. I'll get us in and out."

They lurched and wobbled for at least a couple of miles, and then Wendy stopped, reversed, and did a three-point turn, so the hood of the Dart was heading back the way they'd come. "Everybody out," Wendy said. "Little bit of a hike from here."

They got out, and in the darkness, with only the hoots of owls and the muted roar of the waterfalls as accompaniment, they got everything out of the trunk. Wendy turned on a battery-powered lantern, set it on the trunk lid, and they got into their packs. Dipper carried the bulky—but not heavy—tent. Wendy retrieved the lantern, which with a couple of twists and clicks became a powerful wide-lens flashlight, and she led the way. "Might have to sort of push our way through some brush," she warned.

It wasn't all that bad, though. Mainly willow saplings, with some tall grasses. Before long Dipper saw the gleam of water and they came out on a rocky slope that led down to a beach of coarse sand. "Here we are," she said. "Prime location, with this nice dry high area for the tent, fresh water just thirty steps away, all the comforts. Let's pitch the tent."

The sand at that level was fairly hard-packed, and putting up the tent didn't take very long. Then they unrolled the sleeping bags—"I'd almost say sleep out under the stars, but the way the weather's been, we might be fresher tomorrow under canvas"—and they turned in.

Dipper said, "Once we get married, let's shop for one of those double sleeping bags."

"Nah, more fun to squeeze into one large single bags," Wendy said. "We won't be wearing jammies, so there'll be lots of extra room room. Ready to sleep?"

"I'm tired," Dipper admitted. "You must be, too, after the long drive and all."

She turned out the lantern and in the dark reached for his hand. _Not so bad. Yeah, kinda sleepy, but I'm not crashing._

—_Think we'll find Pacallo's cave?_

_Long shot, man. But it'll be fun trying._

—_You know, even if we do find it, the treasure probably won't amount to much. He said he was going to take the tiara and a couple dozen of the coins with him._

_Do you care if it comes out to just a few bucks?_

—_No. The fun's more in the hunt than in the finding._

_Good attitude, man. Now kiss me good night and let's turn in. If we wake up early—_

"What?" Dipper asked aloud.

"Lake's not very far away. Convenient for skinny-dipping."

"Oh, thanks. I'm trying to settle down to sleep here, and—"

"I'm just giving you something to dream about, Dip."

They kissed a few times, and, still holding hands, fell asleep.

* * *

As Wendy had hinted, they woke early—so early the sun was not yet up and the lake lay under a cream of pale mist—and they had their swim, and they hadn't brought swimsuits, make of that what you will, and then they went back into the tent for a little mental make-out session, and then,. Afterward, feeling refreshed even after a long day and a short night, they got dressed, had a breakfast of protein bars and coffee brewed over a very small campfire, one that was easy to douse and bury under a layer of sand.

They hiked back to the car, packed it, and Wendy drove them back to the road—a surprisingly short distance that seemed, in the daylight and with the way before them clear. "Here we go," Wendy said, turning left. "Now, Howard Road—we took it once before—"

"I remember," Dipper said. "No guard rails, and washouts every so often."

"Yeah, well, we won't go that far this time. I'll show you Lovers' Leap in a minute—if it's even the same one that's mentioned in the legend."

Dipper hung on. Howard Road first took a roller-coaster course over foothills, with a few cabins dotted around off to the right, most of them streaming blue smoke from the chimneys. "The electric grid doesn't run this far," Wendy explained. "People use kerosene lanterns for light and wood stoves for cooking, mostly. Few of them have propane tanks."

They topped a hill, and Wendy pulled off on a graveled scenic overlook—not very scenic, because what Dipper saw was mainly forest and distant hills, but there you are.

They got out and Wendy said, "We'll walk up a little ways. If you hear a car, get as far off the road as you can, 'cause these folks drive mainly four-wheelers, and they all think the whole road belongs to them."

Dipper glanced dubiously to his right. The shoulder, if you could call it that, was maybe two feet wide, and then a steep hill slanted downward. On the far side it was worse—the bluff edged the road there, in some places even overhanging it, and there was no shoulder at all.

They came around a curve and Wendy said, "There it is, dude. Up there, see?"

"The ledge?" Dipper asked.

"Uh-huh. Two hundred fifty feet up, more or less. That runs from about a couple miles up the road to there where it just ends. Story is that two Chinook lovers were chased by her people—"

"Her father was the chief."

Wendy raised an eyebrow at that. "Well, naturally, Dip. What kind of a legend would it be if he was just a fisherman or an arrow merchant? Yeah, he and his braves chased them until they reached the end of the line, and then they embraced and fell jumped to their deaths holding onto each other."

"You don't sound like you thought it was very romantic."

"Well, no," Wendy said. "I don't. I think it's dumb. If the girl had any gumption, she'd stand up to her dad. And if he and his warriors had like spears and bows, there's plenty of handy-sized rocks up there. Pick the right place along the trail, you could hide and try to reason with Dad, and if he was still set on killing you, pick up the rocks and bean the warriors one after the other."

"That's kind of brutal," Dipper said.

"Yeah, but afterwards it'd be romantic. What are you looking for?"

"The folks at the History Museum say the bronze telescope tube got dynamited out of a crevice. I was looking for one."

"Oh, you can take your pick. Around the next curve, I think."

They crunched over broken asphalt—as close to the shoulder as they could get and still stay on the crumbling road—and gained a little altitude. "I see what you mean," Dipper told Wendy.

The bluffs to the left curved away in a long, wide, shallow arc, as if something had scooped rock right out of the cliff. A small waterfall—just a creek up there somewhere spilling over the edge—dissolved into pattering rain that fell just on the outside of the road.

"They call that Dry Falls," Wendy said. "'Cause we can walk behind it and not get wet. Come on—there's a pull-off back against the cliff where people can take photos and all. And all the crevices you want."

They reached the pull-off, a relatively level stretch of rock protected by the overhang of the bluffs, and Dipper saw deep channels cut into the rock up above them. He realized something: "They blasted out this hollow, didn't they?"

"Yep. Before, the cliff was just straight up and down. But they used dynamite to scoop out enough rock for them to build the road. I think those cracks up there are probably places where the waterfall cut runnels down ages ago. I'm guessing one of them was probably where the bronze tube wound up, and when they blasted out the bottom, it got jarred loose from somewheres up there and came falling down."

"Huh. Can we get to the top of the bluffs?"

"Dude! I can climb trees, but not sheer cliffs, man. Yeah, we could—if we drove out of the Valley, went up into the mountains, and hiked out to the spot, with about a week of hikingclimbing and walking. Who are you calling?"

"Nobody. Just using my phone to get the latitude and longitude of this spot, in case we ever get up to the top and want to look into any crevices up there. Where's the ledge?

"Runs above the top of this hollowed-out space. I guess it's maybe a hundred feet over our heads, but we can't see it from here 'cause of the overhang. And we can't get far enough back to have a good view of it, but further up the road you can see where the creek spills over onto the ledge and cuts most of the way through it, then falls on down. Ready to go back to the car?"

They crossed the road—in better shape here, and wider, because of the overhang's protection—and Dipper looked down. "I can see some boulders. I guess that's—"

"The spill from the dynamite blasts, yeah. Dad says his grand-dad told him that some days, the whole Valley shook from the explosions. They used tons of TNT."

"I suppose any evidence they might have blasted loose is down there under tons of rock."

"Most likely."

They went down to the car—they had seen absolutely no traffic so far—and then Wendy drove them up to the next overlook. It was wide enough for them to turn around—"If we don't do it here, it's all the way to the western edge of the Valley before we'll get to another one," she said.

Dipper had brought a pair of eight-power binoculars. From this altitude, he could see the ledge as it ran along the bluff—one of those natural shelves of rock, like the larger mesas on the western side of the Valley, but not as wide and only sparsely growing with some straggles of grass and brush.

"Wish we could explore that," he said.

"I'll give it a shot if you will."

"How far up the road would we have to go to get to it?"

"Mile or less. But it's narrow. I've heard of people taking bad falls from it. I think we'd better come back with mountain boots and equipment before trying it."

"Yeah, but let's see if we can just get to where it starts."

Once the Howard Mine—one of many that had sprung up in the Valley—operated around on the north rim of the bluffs. At first it relied on a huge chute to send the ore down to the valley floor for processing, but that was forever breaking down—the supports would go, or the ore would jam up until the weight collapsed part of the chute, whatever—and the WPA, set up to give out-of-work men and women useful employment during the Depression—had obligingly built the ore road for the convenience of the miners.

Too bad the road was no sooner finished than the chromite ore tailed off and the Howard Mine closed up shop. Or maybe it wasn't too bad—the chromite mine had been in the same area, but higher in the earth, as the mines that had inadvertently tunneled into the enormous bed of fossil amber, Grunkle Stan's Jurassic Sap Hole. Those mines had closed around the turn of the twentieth century; the chromite miners had not dug deep enough to unearth a living dinosaur.

Anyway, no one lived up here now, and the road became ruinous and treacherous. Wendy and Dipper walked up a steep incline, hit the top of a ridge where the road briefly leveled off, and stepped out onto the ledge.

Any lovers stuck up here would be in for it. The cliff still ran vertically for hundreds of feet—they couldn't climb up. And as Dipper edged out onto the ledge for a hundred steps, the drop-off to his left extended down for seventy or eighty feet already. "I think this is far enough," he said. "Uh—I don't suppose there are any caves along the ledge?"

"Don't think so," Wendy said. "We'll get back down to the Valley floor and I'll take a logging road I know to where we can probably see pretty much the whole run of the ledge. If there's a cave, you might be able to spot it with your binoculars."

"Let's do that," Dipper said.

* * *

It was a long morning, but by noon they climbed to the top of a logged-off hill, thickly planted with chin-high saplings, and they could look across and up at the bluffs. "From here the dynamited part doesn't look so large," Dipper said.

"Perspective," Wendy said. "See anything?"

He pulled out the binoculars and slowly scanned the ledge from where it began to where it ended—maybe two miles. Some parts of it bristled with precariously-perched trees. At one place the small waterfall that tumbled down from the edge of the bluffs high overhead had cut a chunk out of it, which might make the ledge impassible, even if an explorer made it that far.

However—"No cave," he said, handing Wendy the binoculars.

She repeated his survey. "Nope," she agreed at last. "Of course, the road takes over what was once the ledge about where we were when we went out on it a little ways. Maybe there's a cave somewhere along in there. It might not be a very big one—could be hard to see."

Trouble was that taller hills, thick with full-grown trees, stood between them and a view of that part of the bluffs.

"I think," Dipper said slowly, "that what we need is a drone."

"Have to be next weekend, then," Wendy said. "Because we'll have to drive to Portland tomorrow to bring Billy to the Falls."

"We won't say anything about this to him," Dipper said.

"Of course not. Hey, Dip, I'm thinking we might go back this afternoon."

"Not camp out again tonight?" Dipper asked.

"Well—since Billy's coming, and since once before he went out to the Cipher statue, I think we'd better check on it."

Dipper nodded. "I guess so."

"But, hey, we can sleep out along the Mystery Trail. Nobody will be traveling it tomorrow. That OK?"

"You know it is," he said.

"OK. Let's go, then."

They scrambled down the hillside to where they had left her Dart. When they reached level ground, Dipper took her hand.

—_You feel it, too, don't you?_

_Kind of a creepy sensation? Yeah, I do. Anything to it?_

—_I don't quite know. But those tales of ghosts and monsters—_

_Dr. P. says there's nothing to them._

—_I know, and he's probably right. But Wendy—_

_Yes?_

_What if he's wrong?_


	6. Visitors

**Lover****s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_6: Visitors_

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: ** _Monday, July 10-First, let me do a little catching up. When Wendy and I went to check on Cipher's effigy, now in the steel cage that Great-Uncle Stanford had Fiddleford build around it, at first I couldn't believe what we were seeing—but then I called Grunkle Ford, and he came out and confirmed it._

_Peeking through the metal bars, you can see the Cipher effigy is eroding. Fast. The beetles aren't coating it with gold any longer. The outstretched hand has crumbled off again, and the features—well, the eye, the bow tie—are blurred. It looks like a snow figure on the second warm day._

"_AT this rate, it'll be gone by—" Ford began._

_I knew what he meant. By our birthday. By the time when Bill's molecules vanish from my heart. "What does it mean?" I asked._

"_Frankly, I don't know," Ford admitted. "If I had to make a guess—perhaps Cipher won't need this form any longer. If so, good riddance. "_

_Wendy gave me a glance, but that what my great uncle said didn't bother me. Ford had a worse history with Bill Cipher than any of us—even Mabel in her prison bubble. At least she enjoyed it for a while! But for a long time Bill was sort of Ford's friend, or Ford thought he was, and then turned on him. Bill's vicious betrayal is something Ford has a hard time forgiving._

_Anyway, we'll keep Billy away from that part of the woods when he visits this time._

_By the way, I'm sitting in the airport right now, bored. Wendy's gone to browse through some of the shops. And it's a long time until the plane lands!_

_Wendy and I didn't think we needed to leave for the airport all that early, but Mabel was antsy. We did talk her out of taking Tripper, because there really wasn't any place in the airport where we could walk him, but as compensation, she brought Teek along. I warned him that I didn't know how comfortable the back seat would be—oh, there's room for three, but Mabel squirms so much when she's not driving that she needs a seat and a half just for her._

_But Mabel said they'd let Teek sit on the driver's side, she'd take the middle seat, and Billy could have the passenger's side so he could see the view. Because she just would not stop nagging us, we set out for Portland at like 8:30, though his plane wouldn't land until past two p.m._

"_Remember," Mabel said, "I get to go to the gate to meet him. Nobody else can go."_

"_Yeah, yeah," I said. Wendy was taking the first turn at the wheel of my Land Runner, and I was on the passenger side, with Mabel right behind me, kicking the back of my seat. "We know."_

"'_Cause his parents trust me!" Mabel said. "They arranged for me to get an official escort pass! Wait, have I lost it? Where is it? We gotta turn around!"_

"_You put it in your purse," Teek reminded Mabel._

_Mabel dug her clutch purse out of her sweater. "There it is! We're saved!"_

"_Remember," I told Mabel, "you still have to go through the security line."_

"_No I don't, silly! I've got an escort pass!"_

"_Yeah," Wendy said, "but Mabes, that's like a boarding pass. So you still have to go through the security line and show the pass and your ID—"_

"_My driver's license!" Mabel yelped. "Where is it? Where—we gotta turn back!"_

"_Your wallet," Teek said._

"_What? Oh, yeah, you're right. That deserves a kiss!"_

_Wendy said, "Boy, my neck's stiff this morning. Must've slept funny. Little massage, Dip?"_

_I reached over to rub her neck, but she really wanted to communicate with me silently: _Man, Dip, was she like this on all those long bus trips you guys used to take?

—For the first fifty miles. Then she usually went to sleep and drooled on my shoulder.

I got a whole new level of respect for you, man!

_It wasn't an eventful trip, but we did get to the airport way early. In fact, we arrived there before Billy's plane even took off, down in Oakland._

_So Mabel and Teek went airport-store-shopping. There was the Oregonian news stand, a Travel Mart, the Real Mother Goose—that's full of hand-crafted stuff, and Mabel hung out there for a long time. She also checked out a couple of restaurants, had some dessert in one with Teek and liked it so much that she stayed and had an early lunch, or a first lunch. One day her metabolism's going to slow down and then she'll have to watch her diet._

_Anyway, Wendy and I sat and when we got tired of that, we got up and strolled around a little and then sat again and talked about our treasure hunt. I liked he drone idea—we could borrow one of Fiddleford's and send it up to cruise the rim of the bluffs and maybe—just maybe—find the cleft from which the bronze tube fell. There's a bare chance that the bag of coins or the tiara might still be stuck somewhere. Oh, and maybe the bones of the lovers. Wendy said if we found any it would be a good gesture to see that they had a respectful burial. Then she went to look in the shops and I said I'd sit here and write a little. And now she's coming back, so—later._

_Finishing up the entry—now it's about six, and we're back at the Shack. All four of us had lunch (second lunch for Mabel, but to give her credit, she stuck to a salad that time) and then Mabel kept announcing things: "His plane's in the air now! Now he's over Sacramento!" and so on. In between, she kept coming up with things we could do with Billy—swimming and boating in the lake, maybe drive up to Lookout Point—in the daytime, silly, so he could see the view—and so on._

_And finally, following the flight info on her phone app, she said, "They're cleared for landing! Where's my escort pass? Here I go—wish me luck!"_

_She ran—literally ran—off to the security checkpoint for Concourse A-B._

"_Isn't she wonderful?" Teek asked._

"_I know I wonder about her a lot," I told him._

_And we settled in to wait for her to return with Billy Sheaffer._

* * *

At almost the same time that Billy's plane landed in Portland, about sixty miles nearly due south of there a compact man, short and somewhat overweight, his brown eyes huge behind round spectacles, asked for a rare book at the reference desk of Willamette University's Hatfield Library. The librarian asked if he had rather just use the digital copy, and he smiled and said, "I'd rather have the print version, please. My eyes aren't the best."

"I'll find someone to bring it to you. Odd, we had a request for it last week. There's never been much demand for this one. Hmm . . . the others used a digital copy. No one's looked at the printed book for ten years or so. Just a moment."

She left, and the man swiveled her computer monitor. He squinted until his eyes were mere slits and he could make out the names: Mason Pines, Wendy Corduroy, research assistants to Dr. Stanford Pines, address in Gravity Falls, state of Oregon.

Pulling a pocket notebook from inside his sport jacket, the man made a hasty note and turned the monitor back to its original position. The librarian returned. "If you'll have a seat over there, Mr. Markheim, an assistant will be here with your book in just a few moments. It cannot be checked out, so you'll have to use it here. Oh, and we ask you not to photocopy anything from it—we want to keep light damage to the print minimal. However, if you need any specific pages, you're welcome to copy them from the digital record. The fee is ten cents per page."

"Thank you," the man said. He found a seat at a table, drumming his blunt fingers on the wood. In a few minutes, a girl brought him the worn octavo volume, Wishram's book about Chinook legends and myths. He took it reverently, his blunt-fingered hands swarthy next to the student's pale white ones. For a moment he admired the book, not that it was very admirable: the mouse-gray jacket cloth was badly faded, especially on the spine, the stamped title on the front had lost almost all of its ink, and the pages inside were delicate and brittle.

Inhaling the dusty, faintly spicy aroma of the old book, the man settled down to find the sections he wanted. Occasionally he would scribble some notes or copy a passage in his pocket notebook.

However, he kept going back to the page where he'd jotted down the three names. And wondering where Gravity Falls, Oregon, might be.

And more to the point, wondering who, exactly, was this Dr. Stanford Pines.

* * *

Mabel didn't shove or push, but she danced her way down the concourse, pirouetting around slower walkers, doing a pas-de-chat off the slidewalk, then waltzing her way to the correct gate—where she saw the plane had docked with the jetway, though no passengers had disembarked.

"Oh, come on, come on," she grumbled. "What's keeping you, airline people? These passengers have places to be, things to do! Hurry up!"

A uniformed attendant opened the door, locked it open, and stood back, and a minute later, the passengers began to emerge: first a pilot, next an old lady in a wheelchair, then a small gaggle of businessmen and women dressed for the office, then some obvious tourists, some wearing mouse ears, and finally a constant stream of people, the majority of them chatting on cell phones.

Then she saw the blonde boy, lugging a suitcase—well, just a carry-on, but for Billy it looked like a burden. "Hey!" she yelled. "Hey, Billy! This is me, Mabel! See me? I'm the one you're waving to! Yay! Welcome to Oregon, home of the moose and the Canada darner! Hey, let me take that."

"I got it," Billy said.

"Well, pull up the handle and roll it!"

"Oh—OK." Billy had a little trouble finding the thumb button that allowed him to pull the grip up from the rolling carry-on bag, but he managed it. "There!"

"First and most important—let me hug you!"

Billy couldn't very well have refused. She not only hugged him, but picked him up and whirled him around. "You're so heavy!" she said, setting him down again. "I think you've grown since we saw you last! How are you? How are your folks? How are your sisters? How is China?"

"Um," Billy said as she started to lead him away from the gate. "I'm OK, Mom and Dad are great, my sisters are fine, and China's on vacation with her folks this week and next, so Mom and Dad thought this was the best time for me to come. I can stay until Saturday!"

"Wow! Well, we can get some time off work—one or the other of us, Dipper or me, I mean—unless the crowds get really heavy, but they won't, not until before Labor Day, and that's more than a month away, so we can take you places and do stuff with you every day. 'Scuse me!"

She had bumped into an impatient-looking man, who muttered something and continued down the concourse, mumbling "B-9, B-9."

"I got to sit next to the window!" Billy said. "Only the ground was really hazy, and lots of times there were just clouds, so I couldn't see much. But once or twice I saw the ocean! I like flying if I can look out a window."

"I can't stand to look out a window on an airplane," Mabel said. "Makes me yack. Not that I mind that. Hey, did you bring trunks? Want to go to the lake this afternoon?"

"Um, yes, I did and yes, I would," Billy said. "I got my Level 5 swimming certificate!"

"You're doing better than Dipper," Mabel said. "He's just got his Wendy certificate. She taught him how to swim. He was always kinda afraid of the water when he was your age. But he does all right. Where's China going on vacation?"

"Um, Disneyland! And then to the Grand Canyon, and then back through Yosemite. She and her folks are gonna be gone for two weeks."

"You miss her?"

"Well, yeah," Billy said shyly. He was too young to have a girlfriend, but just the right age to have a good friend who was a girl.

"Come on! Teek and Wendy and Dipper are waiting for us."

The three spotted Mabel and Billy coming and got up from their seats. "Hey, Billy!" Dipper said. "You ready to go to Gravity Falls?"

"Yeah! We're going to the lake!" Billy said. "And this time I want to get a hat in the Mystery Shack. Then I can tell people in school about where I got it. Oh, did you know that the Mystery Shack was on the _Ghost Ha—har—harassers_ show on the internet? I couldn't see it 'cause my mom and dad say I'm too young, but somebody told Mina they'd seen it and there's a ghost in a closet!"

"Not sure it's really a ghost," Dipper said. "But, yeah, we know there was a show. Parking's this way."

They stowed his suitcase, Mabel arranged the seating—Teek outboard, her in the middle, and Billy on the right side of the back seat—and Dipper took the wheel. "Seat belts!" he reminded everyone.

He drove them from the airport and back to the Interstate, then headed east. "I missed you guys," Billy said.

"It's good to see you, too," Dipper told him. "Summer going OK?"

"Yeah, I guess. Kind of dull. But I'm gonna have fun while I'm up here." He told them about China and her family—"she's not Chinese, that's just her name," he explained—and about how they were taking two weeks first to do Disney, then head to the Grand Canyon, and then spend a few nights in Yosemite.

"Mom and Dad took us to Disneyland a few times," Mabel said. "And once to Disney World. It's even bigger."

"Whoa!" said Billy. "Hey, look, there's still snow up there!"

"That's Mount Hood," Wendy said. "It's a volcano."

"No way!"

"Yep," Mabel said. "But I think it's dormant or something. You should see Gravity Falls some winter when there's like two feet of snow on the ground. You could go skiing on the Mystery Shack lawn!"

"Cool!"

Dipper settled back and concentrated on the traffic, thinking that someday, Mabel would be a great mom.


	7. Entertaining Billy

**Lover****s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_7: Entertaining Billy_

The very first thing Mabel wanted Billy to do was to go with her and Teek up to the farm owned by Wendy's Aunt Sallie to visit her pigs, Widdles and Waddles. "And," Mabel concluded triumphantly, "we'll go in my car, Helen Wheels, and I will do the driving!"

Since it was an unannounced visit to her aunt, Wendy went along—as did Tripper, who was the only dog that Billy had ever touched or petted—most dogs were leery of him, and in turn he was afraid of most dogs.

However, Dipper begged off. He visited Grunkle Stanford, who was down in his lab, and asked him about borrowing a drone.

"Fiddleford says it's fine," Ford told him. "In fact, he's got several older models and he'll give you the sixth one in the series. He's on the eighth generation now and wants to hang onto the seventh in case of accidents. The sixth-generation has a range of sensors, though—TV, of course, but also infrared and three-dimensional imaging."

"That sounds great. Thank him for us," Dipper said.

"I will." After a pause, Ford asked, "How is Billy Sheaffer?"

Dipper took a deep breath. "He seems fine to me. He's always been a little—I'm not sure how to put it, but—um . . . ."

"A little unworldly?" Ford asked.

"That's a good way to describe it," Dipper agreed. "Sort of detached, I guess. Like he's not really sure about anything. He seems surprised that—that the earth is solid, sometimes. And he's always a little tentative. But he gets really excited about history. He went through a whole Egyptian period."

Ford closed his eyes. "Because of the Pyramids."

Dipper nodded. "Right. Easy to guess, huh?"

Ford said seriously, "Well—in one of my Journals, Three or Four, I think, I recorded my research into Bill Cipher's earlier dealings with humans. It was Bill's claim that the Egyptians got the idea of building pyramids from his Mindscape form. I think that's highly unlikely, but who knows for sure?"

"Right, I remember that now," Dipper said. "And he claimed he gave the Masons their pyramid symbol and because of that, George Washington had a pyramid designed into the Great Seal of the United States."

"The reverse side," Ford pointed out. "The obverse has the eagle, olive branches, and arrows. The reverse has a pyramid crowned with, you might remember, the All-Seeing Eye of Providence. A pyramid with a single eye."

"Sounds like Bill's touch, all right," Dipper said. "But Billy doesn't remember any of that. He does have weird dreams now and then—he's told me a few, and I think it's Cipher's past memories seeping through. In the worst one, Billy has nightmares of being stuck in a burning room with no way out. I think that comes from the moment when you used the memory eraser to wipe Grunkle Stan's mind."

Ford nodded. "I concur. Has Billy spoken of any other suggestive dreams?"

Dipper frowned in concentration. "A lot of being-chased nightmares, you know, the type where you can't make out what's chasing you. Flying or floating dreams, like he's soaring over the landscape or hovering in mid-air. Here's something: He's called me 'Pine Tree' before, and he's called Wendy 'Red.' That's what Cipher used to do."

Ford sighed and shook his head. "Yes, a habit I at first found rather charming when I accepted Cipher as my Muse. I was 'Sixer' to him most often—an offensive reference to my deformity, though at the time I thought it was meant in a friendly, joking way. Giving nicknames to those with whom he interacts is an ancient habit of Bill's. I seem to recall he once referred to George Washington as "Walrus Teeth."

"I . . . don't get it," Dipper said.

A man always searching for teachable moments, Ford grinned at his great-nephew. "Contrary to folklore, George Washington's dentures were not made of wood, but, depending on the pair, of various substances—human teeth, cow's teeth, elephant and walrus ivory, among others. Evidently Bill briefly knew General Washington when his false teeth were made of walrus ivory."

"Oh."

"And Bill once referred to Pharaoh Tutankhamen as 'Toot-Toot.' I hypothesize that the nicknames indicate Billy already has some memories—glimpses of memories, I suppose—from his demonic incarnation. I wonder what will happen when Cipher's molecules integrate with Billy's."

"I do, too, and I'm scared," Dipper admitted. "More about what another Weirdmageddon might mean for the earth than what might happen to me. I'd hate for the old Bill Cipher to return."

"If he does," Ford said, "I think we'll have two allies who did not intervene before: the Axolotl and, especially, Jheselbraum the Unswerving. The Oracle. Together they have made it quite clear to Cipher that this is his very last chance—and between them, they have the power to utterly eradicate him if he gets up to his old tricks. What that eradication might do to our universe, however—that I cannot even guess."

"What would you do if he reverted?" Dipper asked.

"Fight him," Ford answered without blinking.

"So would I, even without the Axolotl and the Oracle helping. I don't think we could beat him—but I'd fight him at your side."

"Sometimes, Mason, one simply has to roll the infinity-sided die."

* * *

Up at Aunt Sallie's farm, Billy had a terrific time. The way the chickens recognized Mabel as their leader and followed her every command impressed him and made him laugh. In the small pasture beside the barn, he threw sticks for Tripper, who tirelessly fetched them back. Waddles, whose nature had never changed from the sweet and placid piglet that Mabel had first adopted, patiently let Billy ride on his back all around the farmyard.

At one point, Sallie called Wendy aside—Billy, Teek, and Mabel were still out back, playing a complex chase game with Tripper—and asked seriously, "What's this little boy's trouble, Wendy?"

"Can't hide anything from you," Wendy said. "That's kinda why I came along. Why do you ask, first off?"

"Because I have Second Sight," Sallie said. That was something she always claimed, and it used to awe a younger Wendy. More, it seemed true—the first time Wendy had heard of it was on a warm afternoon while Dan and Sallie and Sallie's late husband were out rocking on the porch and chatting. A six-year-old Wendy had slipped quietly out to join them and without even looking around, Sallie had said, "Niece, I hope you liked the molasses cookies. I'll forgive you if you go wash and dry your dishes."

And Wendy, who'd thought her cookie pilfering had been a perfect crime, said, "Yes, Aunt Sallie," and she meekly went back to clean up. Later, when they were all at dinner, Wendy had tentatively asked, "Aunt Sallie, how did you know about me and the cookies?"

Laughing, her dad had offered an explanation: "My sister's got eyes in the back of her head, baby girl!"

"Have not," Sallie snapped. "But I do have the Second Sight. Lot of the Corduroy women get it. You might get it too, when you're a woman full grown. Might seem like a big thing, but really it's pretty irritating. You may be doing something ordinary, like dressing out a deer or sewing a patch on the knees of some jeans, and all of a sudden, like watching a movie in your mind, you see stuff you have no way of knowing about and it distracts you from the job at hand. Like just a while ago, I saw you pushing a kitchen chair—that one, the one Danny's in now—over to the counter and climbing up and getting yourself two molasses cookies out of the cookie jar on the top shelf of the pantry. And I saw you even put 'em on a plate and got yourself a glass of milk. Isn't that the way it happened?"

Wendy nodded.

"Mm-hmm. And you started to take three, but you put one back," Sallie said. "Why is that?"

"I thought you'd miss three, but maybe not just two," Wendy said.

"Baby girl," Dan rumbled kindly, "don't never try to fool Sallie. You got to get up more than early in the morning to outwit her. You'd have to not go to bed for a week, and then you'd be too blame sleepy to pull it off!"

But that had been when Wendy was six. Now very nearly a woman full-grown—according to Sallie, she'd take the final step when she got married—Wendy asked, "What does your Second Sight say about Billy?"

They were standing at the back kitchen window, gazing out at the kids' laughing game with the small brown dog. Sallie said quietly, "That he's a confused and lonely little boy, and something more, besides. Can't say just what. He's got a bad side, but you'd know more about that than I do. Thing of it is, Wendy, everybody's got a bad side—Billy, even Mabel. Even you and me. Difference is, the good people don't let it take ahold of their lives. I get the sense that Billy feels something stirring inside him and he doesn't trust it. And you and Dipper and Mabel are reminding him that he doesn't have to let that bad side get the upper hand."

"Yeah, that pretty much nails it," Wendy said. "I could tell you the whole story—"

"No," Sallie said with a grim smile. "It's not your concern or your burden, and it's not Dipper's, nor yet mine. It's Billy's. If he comes through whatever's going to happen to him, biggest lesson he has to learn first is to trust his friends. Keep that in mind for me."

"I will."

"And tell Dipper about this little talk. Somehow this involves him more than it does you. He's going to need you to hold his hand, Wendy. He's nearly old enough to call himself a man, but he's going to need your help. How much do you love him?"

Wendy met her steady gaze. "He's the one," she said.

Impulsively, Sallie leaned over to hug her niece. "God bless you, girl! I said the minute I laid eyes on that boy, I said, 'Him and Wendy. Strong in different ways, but together damn near unbeatable.' Lord forgive my profane mouth."

Wendy had to catch her breath. "Thanks," she said softly. "That means a whole lot to me. I won't say there's not any danger ahead, 'cause I'd be lying and you'd see right through it. But I do believe with me and Dipper together—and Mabel too, come to that—we'll be strong enough for whatever might be heading toward us."

Aunt Sallie glanced at the clock on the mantel. "What's headin' toward us right now," she said, "is dinner. Come on and help me. Fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, fresh sweet corn on the cob, beans out of my garden, and my own special cinnamon-apple cobbler and ice cream to top it with."

So they went into the kitchen and in a few minutes the delicious aromas drew both Tripper and Mabel inside. Out in the yard, Teek was tossing an ancient baseball—one that a young Danny Corduroy had played with decades back—for Billy to swing at.

Mabel watched them through the windows as the chicken sizzled in the two huge cast-iron skillets and the beans and corn on the cob bubbled in their pots. Billy took strike nine or ten, whiffing the ball, missing it completely. "Billy has a tough time," she said. "He doesn't have the depth perception that other kids do."

"I noticed his false eye," Aunt Sallie said. "Did the poor child have an accident?"

"He was born that way," Mabel said. "His pro—pros—what's the word, Wendy?"

"Prosthetic?"

"Yeah, his prosthetic eye is so realistic it fools most people. This one even moves with his other eye—his first one used to just stare straight ahead, and that was a little creepy. But he hates to be different from the other kids, so don't talk about it, OK?"

Both Sallie and Wendy simultaneously smiled and zipped their lips. "Thanks," Mabel said. She looked back out the window and a stout _crack! _rang out. "Hey, he got a piece of that one! A double, at least!" She threw up the sash and yelled, "And the crowd goes wild! Way to go, Billy!"

Looking over Mabel's shoulder, Wendy saw Billy give her a look of pure adoration.

The twins had told Wendy that Billy now had China, a friend-who-was-a-girl, at school. And they liked each other a lot.

But to Wendy, one thing was clear:

Billy still had a crush on Mabel.


	8. Where Dreams Are Real

**Lover****s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_8: Where Dreams Are Real_

That Monday night Billy took Mabel's old bed in the attic. He asked a favor of Dipper: "Do you have a night light that we could leave on?"

"No, sorry," Dipper said. "But I'll leave the light on out on the landing, and we can open the door a crack."

"Thanks," Billy said. "That'll do." After a few moments of silence, as though he felt he should offer an explanation, he said, "If I wake up in the night and need to use the bathroom or something, it helps. Sometimes when I'm not at home I wake up and can't remember where I am or how the room is shaped."

"No problem. You have enough cover? Would you want a blanket?"

"No, it's not cool at all up here. I mean, you know, in temperature."

"I know what you mean," Dipper said. He went out onto the landing, switched on the one bulb out there, came back in and said, "Turn out the lantern and I'll fix the door."

He had put the battery-powered lantern over beside Billy's bed. Dipper could find his way through that attic in pitch darkness. Billy snapped the switch, and then Dipper closed the door—almost. He left an inch-wide strip of light showing. "Is that OK?"

"Yeah, fine, thanks," Billy said. "Good night."

"Good night." Dipper got between his sheets and rolled onto his left side. He could see Billy on the other bed, huddled under his sheets.

Dipper closed his eyes but did not go to sleep before Billy asked, "If I have a bad dream and yell or something, you won't tell Mabel, will you?"

"Not if you don't want me to. Do you think you're going to have a bad dream?"

"I hope not. But, you know, when my family's gone on trips, sometimes in a motel or somewhere, I'll dream that the place is on fire. Things like that. I wanted you to know, just in case. Thanks for not telling."

"You're welcome."

Before long, Billy must have drifted to sleep, judging from his regular breathing and his stillness. Mentally, Dipper composed an entry for his journal. Maybe he'd write it down later, maybe he wouldn't, but he felt the need to put his thoughts into words.

* * *

_I wonder how much of Billy is Bill Cipher and how much is just ordinary kid. He doesn't have many of Cipher's traits. Where Bill is brash, Billy is timid. Where Bill is a braggart, Billy doubts himself._

_I suppose having your spirit reborn into a totally alien body—after all, humans are aliens according to Bill's species—can jar you to the core. I'm not sure, but I think one thing terrifies Bill about this situation: Humans are mortal. And we know it._

_Ford says that Bill is, or was, older than our galaxy. Seventy or eighty years must look pretty puny compared to that._

_This whole business of time lines. It's the hardest thing to wrap my mind around. As far as I understand it, and Ford agrees with me, the outline is this: If Billy grows up and has a normal life and learns some basic human decencies—and more important, lives by them—when he dies, the Axolotl will reincarnate him in his own dimension, which has existed maybe as long as the universe has. As Bill Cipher, he gets a do-over, a chance to act for good and not for evil._

_But—somehow that won't change our time line. In our universe, Bill Cipher came to Gravity Falls, the Rift between dimensions opened, and for a period when time stood still, we experienced Weirdmageddon. For us, Weirdmageddon began on August 22, 2012—and lasted for more than a week. I make it nine days, but Mabel thinks it was at least ten. But when Grunkle Ford erased Bill from Grunkle Stan's mind and we returned to normal—it was August 22, late._

_We spent the next few days jogging Grunkle Stan's memory. He was functioning by the 25_ _th_ _, though at that time the events before Mabel and I came up for the summer were a blur to him. It took months before Grunkle Ford walked him through his life up to the time that Ford vanished into the Portal. That was why, by the way, Ford offered to take Stan along on the expedition to the Arctic—to make sure that Stan could recover his memories. Then later, after they returned, Fiddleford helped him recall the thirty years in between Ford's vanishing and Weirdmageddon._

_He still struggles, sometimes, to remember something from his earlier life. He mentioned to me that he had run into an old flame of his, Carla McCorkle and that he got a rush of memory on seeing her face—but up to that time, she had slipped his mind. He vaguely recalls escaping from a South American prison, but not why he had been imprisoned. Anyway, he's got 90% of his memories back, Ford estimates._

_It's funny—Stan can accept Billy as a reincarnation of Bill. It doesn't seem to bother him—"I punched him out once, and if need be, I can do it again." But Billy is intimidated by Stan, and he doesn't know why. Ford doesn't affect him that way—but Ford is leery of Billy!_

_This week I have to have a talk with Billy. Not tonight. Tonight he's sleeping peacefully. But maybe he and I will find a quiet place and I'll tell him, as gently as I can manage, to get ready for big changes when August 31 comes around._

* * *

Tuesday morning, before tourists began to crowd in, Soos gave Billy a personal tour of the Mystery Trail and the Museum. "Here we go, Billy. Welcome to the place where dreams are real: The Mystery Shack!"

Billy wasn't a dumb kid. When Soos touted some of the exhibits in the museum, Billy smiled and went along with the joke, but he clearly knew the difference between a fish's rear with a monkey's torso stitched to it and a real mermaid. And he was positive that no jackrabbits ever really grew antelope antlers.

Soos's Rogues' Gallery was a different matter. Soos and Melody had photographed a wide variety of denizens of the Falls and the framed pictures now lined one wall of the Museum. They were almost all authentic, too—ironically, the one exception was the first in the series, the Gobblewonker, from the series that Dipper had shot of McGucket's submarine robot in the cavern behind the Falls.

Along with that, the Gremloblin posed in a menacing way (though to be honest, even when he was being hospitable, he scared the daylights out of most people); a Manotaur bench-pressed a redwood trunk; a leprecorn and its close relative, a unicorn; a merman (photo courtesy of Mabel); a Gnome assembly, Gnomes piled into the form of a medium-sized giant; and a few others.

Soos had shown the photos to Stan before putting them up. Stan had offered him valuable advice: "These here are too clear. You gotta send them through a photo editing program and filter 'em so they're blurry and hard to make out. If you can just barely see the Gobblewonker or the Manotaur and so on, they're lots scarier. And make it so the labels suggest these things ain't been discovered yet, you know? Mystery, Soos. That's the key. Not reality, but keepin' the mystery alive."

Taking Stan's suggestions to heart, Soos had done a great job. Now, instead of being labeled "Gobblewonker, Monster of the Lake," the first photo's label read, "Does a Prehistoric Monster lurk in Lake Gravity Falls? You decide."

The Gnome giant stood beside the totem pole for scale, and while the totem pole was pretty obvious, the giant had become a hulking, frightening shadow figure with glowing eyes.

Billy was more impressed by these than by any of the stuffed and mounted critters. And he knew Gnomes were real because he had met some—they freaked him out the first time, but he'd adjusted to the notion that some people, though very small, were otherwise normal. Or Gnormal in their case.

Gideon, who with his girlfriend Ulva had drifted into a more or less constant job at the Shack, offered Billy an opportunity to perform: "You're just the right size to fit into the Dancing Wolf Boy costume! How'd you like a chance at show business?"

Billy turned red and mumbled, "I'd be too scared. I don't like people looking at me if I don't know them."

"That is fine," Ulva said with a smile. "My Gideon loves attention, but not everyone is alike to everyone else."

"Show him what you can do, sweetie," Gideon said.

"He does not want to see that," Ulva protested.

Gideon confided, "Ulva can turn into a wolf. She's a real werewolf! Just do a little."

Ulva sighed and said, "Now, do not let yourself be scared."

She concentrated, and her ears became pointed, the lower part of her face became a snout, hair sprouted, and she said, "Now I am the part-wolf, part girl. Strange, but not scary, right?"

Although a surprised Billy had taken a step back, he could still recognize her gentle eyes and her voice. "Not so bad," he said.

"Here, you can touch my face. I do not bite."

He timidly patted her cheek. "That's so cool," he said.

"I know, right?" Gideon said. "She can turn into a full wolf form—four legs, tail, the works. But that makes her feel bad for a while afterward, so now she can just turn back."

Ulva took a deep breath. Her features altered, the excess hair vanished, and once again she was a calm, sweet-faced girl. "Not every not-normal person is a monster," she said. "The Gnomes can be very kind and sweet. If ever you are lost in the woods in Gravity Falls, just call out, 'Is there a Gnome who can help me?' Most of the time one will come and lead you to a road or a trail."

Dipper got off work at noon, and he and Billy watched the Gnomes dance. Their version of dancing was extremely athletic and in certain movements was all but indistinguishable from a spirited brawl, but tourists loved it and tossed money to them.

Back in the employees' room, Jeff gave the troupe a review: "Not bad, Lilac, Rowena, and Delia. Mack, you came in too early. Remember your cue—ba-domp, ba-domp, then dom-dom-DOMM! And you come out and Delia joins you. That way you don't have to vamp. Fred, good spin—did he hurt you when he lifted you over his head, Lilac? No? Great, you kids are coming along. Next show, just stay on the beat, time your entrances, and you got it made!"

Billy asked Jeff, "Is dancing hard?"

"Meh, it takes practice," Jeff said, looking up at the eleven-year-old. "Like everything else. But any Gnome that can run away from a coyote or a killbilly can dance. If they can't, they get eaten."

"Killbilly?" Billy asked uncertainly.

"They come from way back in the hills," Dipper said. "You won't run into any around the Shack or around town."

"And they don't attack people," Jeff said. "Not usually, not unless they're on the trail of some food the humans have. Like if you have some jerky in your pocket and one comes jumping toward you, just toss the jerky down and run. Nine times out of ten, you can get away easy. Hey, Dipper, why not take Billy out to see the Oregon Monkey Spiders? They look fierce, but they never come down from the trees."

"Want to go?" Dipper asked.

"Uh—are they dangerous?"

"Not unless you climb a tree and get stuck in a web," Dipper said. "They live pretty high up and they're wary of humans. We probably won't even see one."

But Billy was interested, so Dipper and Mabel drove him out to the strip of forest along the edge of the river and walked for a couple of hundred yards. "There's one," Mabel whispered. "Up there in that tree."

"Beech," Dipper said.

"Don't call me that in front of Billy!" Mabel hissed.

"No, it's a beech tree. That one, Billy, see? OK, look up about halfway to the crown—there it is, it's moving now—weaving a web, I think."

"Oh, yeah!" Billy said. "Uh—is it a monkey or a spider?"

"It's an unholy mixture of both!" Mabel said. "They're rare, though. Far as we know, none of them live outside the Valley."

"Gravity Falls is way different," Billy said.

"Some of it can be dangerous," Dipper told him. "But if you learn about it—well, most of the odd things really aren't a threat. Not if you take care and notice things around you. And I love it up here."

"Me, too," Mabel said. "This is where I met my soul mate."

"Teek?" asked Billy in a small voice.

"I meant Waddles, but yeah, we'll go with Teek."

They treated Billy to lunch in Greasy's Diner, where they ran into Dan Corduroy, taking a lunch hour off from some tree-cutting near town. Billy stared at him in complete awe. "Is he a giant?" he whispered.

"He's the King of the Lumberjacks," Mabel said, loudly enough for Dan to hear.

He scowled around at her. "You better believe it!" And then he grinned. "Thanks, Mabel! Hey, Susan! Give these young'uns whatever they want. It's on me!"

So the day passed. And after dinner that evening, Dipper said to Billy, "You and I need to talk. It's serious, but not scary. Let's walk down to the bonfire clearing."

"Can Mabel come?"

"Sorry," Dipper said. "She and Teek went to see a movie. But I think this talk—well, I think it's what they call man-to-man. OK?"

Billy looked nervous, but he swallowed and nodded. "OK."


	9. Much to Talk About

**Lover****s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_9: Much to Talk About_

The sun was still up, though settling toward the horizon, when Billy and Dipper strolled to the bonfire clearing. "Can we have a fire?" Billy asked, gazing at the rock firepit.

"Uh, sure, I guess so," Dipper said. "If the kindling's dry enough."

It seemed to be. He sent Billy back to the Shack for a match while he piled up enough kindling and fuel for a small campfire. Billy soon came back not with a match, but with one of those long propane lighters meant for charcoal grills. "They told me you can't strike a match without breaking it," Billy explained.

"Who did?" Dipper asked, more amused than insulted.

"Mabel. She came back to get some snacks from the machine, 'cause the movie charges too much for candy."

"Mm-hmm. She already got busted once for bringing outside snacks into the movies. OK, let me try this." He clicked the button, the lighter jetted out its little yellow flame, and before long the pine splinters crackled and blazed. Dipper settled back. "There we go. Now, before we leave, we'll have to smother this and pile some dirt on it to make sure we don't start a forest fire. Remind me, OK?"

"Sure," Billy said. The flickering flames should have made him look evil—like holding a flashlight under your chin as you tell a ghost story—but he seemed too happy and excited for that.

"Ever had a campfire before?" Dipper asked him.

"Um, no, not really, not at home. We've been picnicking and camping, but Dad has this little portable gas stove thing. You know, the kind with two burners, and the gas comes in like metal bottles?"

"Propane, sure," Dipper said. "Those are handy. It takes a while to build and start a campfire." For a moment they sat silent, just listening to the crackles as the flames attacked the wood. Then Dipper asked, "So how's middle school?"

"It's OK. I like English and history best. I'm in seventh grade next year."

"Any trouble with bullies?"

Billy screwed up his face and gave that a lot of thought. "I don't know," he said at last. "People make fun of me. I'm lousy at sports. Sometimes I bump into people 'cause I can't see on one side. Sometimes they call me loser or yell 'Watch where you're going.' But nobody picks on me all the time. I mean, there's not anybody I'd call a bully. But they all kind of—look down on me. Well, not all. China never does. And one or two others. But a lot of them do."

"I know the feeling," Dipper said. "That's the way I felt in middle school, too, a lot of the time. I was lucky. I had Mabel. You make sure that you and China have each other's back, OK? Watch out for one another. And if somebody shoves you around, don't hit back. That's what they want. Get away and tell an adult. It's not tattling if somebody's poking at you or shoving you or hitting you."

Billy nodded.

Dipper said, "That wasn't why I wanted to talk to you. You're gonna be twelve soon. Things change."

Billy looked embarrassed. "Dad's already talked to me about babies and stuff," he muttered.

"Good, that's what parents are supposed to do," Dipper said, fighting back a smile. "But I had something else in mind." He took out Journal 3—or a duplicate of it—and opened it to page he'd marked with a green sticky note. "What is this?"

Billy took the book and leaned over it, tilting it so the firelight lit up the figure that Grunkle Ford had drawn many years before. "Uh, a cartoon?" Billy asked, tentatively.

"It's a drawing of a creature named Bill Cipher," Dipper said quietly.

"But it's not real?"

"Bill Cipher was real enough," Dipper said. "He was Grunkle Ford's friend for a while. Grunkle Ford even called him his Muse. Do you know what a Muse is?" Dipper had the crazy thought, _I sound like Mr. Rogers! 'Do you know what an eldritch abomination is? Hm? Do ya? Can you say 'abomination?'_

"Like—music?" Billy guessed.

"Well, I suppose that might be where the name comes from," Dipper said. "The Muses were the ancient Greek goddesses of the arts—poetry, drama, painting, music, all of the arts. The Greeks believed that a Muse could find a promising human artist and inspire him or her to create great art."

"How?" Billy asked.

Dipper chuckled. "You ask the hard questions, Billy. I suppose that one day a Muse came in a dream or vision to Homer and whispered to him, 'You know, somebody should really write a poem about poor Odysseus and how he struggled for ten years to get home after the Trojan War ended. All those adventures—people would love them!' And the next morning at breakfast, Homer told his wife, 'Hon, this great idea just popped into my head! I'm going to be a poet!'"

"Oh, so is that what 'inspire' means?"

"It means a lot of things," Dipper said. "It comes from a word that in ancient Latin meant both 'spirit' and 'breath.' _Spiritum,_ I think. In English, we have the words spirit and respiration—catch the _spir _in the middle there? Spirit and breath, see? So a Muse sort of breathes an idea or a goal into someone's mind. Well, Bill Cipher helped Grunkle Ford get a lot of ideas for his research. But Bill wasn't a Muse. He was—well, Grunkle Ford calls him a demon."

"Like a devil."

"Yes. Because he was tricky. See, Bill came from a different dimension from us. You've seen cartoons about that, right?"

"Like 'I'm not from 'round here, I'm from a different dimension?' Yeah."

"It's usually impossible for a human to leave the dimension of Earth and go to a different one. And hard for a creature from a different dimension to break through into ours. But Gravity Falls is different."

"It feels different," Billy agreed. "Like—like going swimming in soda water. The air tingles."

Dipper wondered if he was doing the right thing. He hadn't imagined that Billy actually felt physically the weirdness bubbling in the air of Gravity Falls. "That's because Gravity Falls is one of the places on Earth where the wall between reality and other dimensions is very thin," he said carefully. "Bill Cipher was trapped in a place between dimensions called the Nightmare Realm. It was a place where the natural laws don't apply. Nothing makes sense there. He'd been trapped there for a long time, and he wanted to escape into our reality, see?"

"I guess so."

Dipper took a deep breath. This was going to be the hard part. "But Bill didn't want to just get away from a place where nothing made sense. He wanted to take over Earth. To rule it. And he was very powerful."

"Did he ever get through?"

"Well—my Grunkle Ford made a machine that opened up a doorway to other dimensions. He got pulled through it, but that destroyed the machine so he couldn't get back. Fortunately, Bill Cipher couldn't use it to get to Earth either. But—OK, my Grunkle Stan repaired the machine and Grunkle Ford came back to Earth after many years of being lost in the dimensions. And then Bill Cipher did get through a rift—a crack in reality. And he tried to kill me and Mabel. But my Grunkles stopped him and erased him."

"Killed him?" Billy asked. "Good."

"They mostly killed him," Dipper said. "They wiped him out of physical existence. But little bits of him survived. A few tiny pieces of Bill got stuck in my heart."

"Does it hurt?" Billy asked, sounding alarmed.

"I don't even know they're there most of the time," Dipper said. "But on my eighteenth birthday, those little bits—molecules—of Bill are coming out of me."

"Good," Billy said. "I hope it doesn't hurt."

"But, Billy—they'll become a part of your body instead."

"What?" Billy swayed on the log, and Dipper jumped up to catch him if he fainted and fell toward the fire. "Why? What does he want with me? I don't want to have part of a demon in me!"

"I'm sorry, Billy," Dipper said. "But you already do."

* * *

The talk went on far longer than Dipper had intended. They put a little more wood on the fire, and the stars came out as Billy asked questions and Dipper answered them as much as he could.

"Will I know?" Billy asked, his voice thin and panicky. "Will I not be me any longer? I'm scared!"

"You'll still be you," Dipper assured him. "Only I think you'll start to remember more. And feel more. See, one thing about Bill Cipher, he couldn't feel very much. He enjoyed tricking people, and he could get angry—I saw him so angry once I thought he'd explode—but little things like friendship and sadness—he didn't know what they were. Or family. Most important, he knew about love, but he'd never once felt it. Your job is to learn about all those things. To learn to—to build and not to tear down. To make people's lives richer and happier, not to control and dominate them. That's what you have to do."

"Why? If I can't do it, what happens?"

"Nothing, I guess," Dipper said. "But wait for a year or two. If you start to feel different—if you start to want to trick or control people because that might get you an advantage or amuse you—then stop and call me. I mean any time. If I'm in a classroom or sound asleep, I'll take your call. I'll give you all the help I can."

"Why? Won't it be dangerous?"

"Doesn't matter," Dipper said. "In five years of coming to Gravity Falls, I've learned that everybody deserves a chance. Sometimes they won't take it because they've gone too far. But most times if you really understand them, monsters aren't monsters. They're dangerous to humans because they don't understand humans, or because humans are afraid of them and mean to them, or other stupid little reasons that can be fixed."

"Can we stop this from happening?" Billy pleaded.

"No. There are powers and forces too great for us to resist. And I think—I think if it didn't happen, if Bill's molecules didn't leave my heart and go into yours, that would be fatal for both you and me."

"But I didn't do anything bad," Billy said, and Dipper saw he was crying. "I don't want to have a demon inside me!"

"He's not really a demon," Dipper told him. "He's been—well, crazy. For millions of years. But he's been given a second chance. I don't think—I don't know for sure, but I don't think—he'll try to take control of you. You may not even notice much at first. Most of the time I'm not aware that those six molecules are inside my heart. But maybe—well, if you remember, you know, not to do things to other people that you wouldn't like done to you—huh. Or let's put it positively: If you'll always treat people the same way you want to be treated, you'll be going in the right direction."

"But that's hard. When somebody pushes you around."

"I know it is. But the harder it is, the more it's worth doing," Dipper said. "Look, when things get tough, remember you have friends—and family. Your mom and dad, your sisters, Mabel, Wendy, me—call on us. Any time."

Billy wiped his eyes. "Thanks," he mumbled. "This is true, isn't it, Dipper? You're not just—what's wrong?"

Dipper had suddenly sat up straighter. He held up a hand. "Just a second, Billy," he said. And then he went away.

Well, not really. But all of a sudden the surroundings became warped and monochromatic. And Bill Cipher hovered in front of him. "Pine Tree!" he said in his weird high-pitched voice. "Look at you! Trying to talk some sense into me. I'm a funny-looking kid, aren't I?"

"No," Dipper said. "You look very human. How'd you do this?"

"Tick-tock, Pine Tree! We're running short of time here. Ah, I'm gonna miss you, pal! And just when my aim was getting better, ah-ha-ha-ha! But then I'll be Billy, so maybe we can get together and compare stories about girlfriends, if you know what I mean, wink-wink, nudge-nudge! Ha! Kidding, kid, 'cause I'm a kidder, kiddo. OK, look, two seconds have already passed in the real world. Turn over control to me for one minute. I want to give myself a piece of advice. Billy's scared, and he deserves better. I'll be good, cross your heart. See what I did there? Can I drive for a minute, Dipper?"

"Go ahead."

"Dipper?" Billy asked again.

Dipper took a deep breath. "Ah, it is good to be back in the real world! Hi, Billy. The name's Bill! Dipper's letting me speak through him. Hey, do my eyes look funny?"

Billy shrank back. "They're yellow and scary!"

"Yeah, well, don't let it weird you out, kid. Your eye won't change. Nice job, by the way. Your folks must have found you a great surgeon and ophthalmologist. OK, don't panic. Even I don't know how this thing works, but I promise you, you won't feel any pain. And I kinda think that at first you'll hear from me in dreams, and gradually the dream part will become part of you. It's like a change that all humans go through when they grow up. Everybody gets different as they grow. Nothing to panic about. Listen, though: Trust Dipper. Trust Mabel. They're your friends. Take it from you, friendship is more powerful than you can even guess. And I won't hide the fact that I've been a bad triangle, but—thing is, we gotta become better. You'll learn why eventually. Will you do me a favor here? No tricks, nothing up my sleeve, no sleeves, even! Ah-ha-ha-ha! Will you promise to give me a chance and help me to be, and I can't believe I'm saying this, good?"

"I—guess," Billy said.

"Shake on it?"

After a moment's hesitation, Billy held out his hand, and Dipper shook it. "Life's gonna be scary sometimes, kid," Bill said through Dipper. "Won't lie to you. And sad sometimes, and hard lots of times, but hang in there. We'll make it through, somehow. This is Bill Cipher, saying 'we'll meet again!'"

"Whoa," Dipper said.

After staring at him, Billy said, "Your eyes look normal again. What did you—what did you do? Was that a trick?"

Dipper said, "I let Bill come through to speak to you. He asked me to. I was sort of riding along in my own head, just watching and listening. Did—did you feel anything when we shook hands?"

"I—Billy looked surprised. "I think," he said slowly, "I think now I feel a little better."

"That's good," said Dipper, who didn't know just then exactly how _he_ felt. "It's late. Help me snuff out the fire."

They scattered and covered every ember, and Dipper stamped the soil down. As they walked back, Dipper said, "I didn't mean to worry you or scare you."

"It's all right," Billy said. "I'm glad I know. It would be worse not to know."

"That's a grown-up way of thinking," Dipper said.

Ahead of them the Shack waited, the windows golden with light. And the triangle window in the attic, the one that looked like a stained-glass rendering of Bill Cipher, was warmest-looking of all.

Dipper put a hand on the younger kid's shoulder as they walked up the porch steps. "OK. On August 31, you and me. Whatever happens, we'll face it together."

"You and me and Mabel," Billy said. "Yeah. 'Cause we're friends."


	10. A Voice from the Dark

**Lover****s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_10: A Voice from the Dark_

Late Wednesday night, or Thursday morning, Dipper wasn't sure which, Billy woke him up.

"Pine Tree!" said the little guy's voice. "Psst! You awake over there, Pine Tree?"

"Billy?" Dipper asked, groggy and only half awake. "What's wrong?"

"Not Billy. Me. Remember this? Eeny-meeny-miney-you! Shh, don't yell, I couldn't do this if the kid was awake."

Ice ran through Dipper's veins. Oh, yes, he remembered that counting-out chant. He'd heard it once from Grunkle Stan and twice from Cipher—and the last time, he'd been sure Cipher was on the verge of murdering Mabel. "What are you doing?" Dipper asked, but he struggled to keep his voice quiet.

"In Gravity Falls, Billy and me are close enough now for me to take over. Don't know what'll happen after I move outa your heart and into his carcass in August. But listen. I have to practice doing, yech, I can't believe I'm saying this, good deeds, right? So I want to give you a warning. Your treasure hunt might bring you a lot more than you expect. A lot more. And . . . you're not the only ones looking."

"Who else?" Dipper asked. "Not you?"

"Me? No, Pine Tree! I don't know who. Somebody with past ties is all I'm getting. Might be evil, might be good, might be meh, who knows, not me. But just know that somebody else is on the track of the legends, anyway. I suppose you and Red are gonna go ahead with your hunt, come Helen Highwater? Ah, what a dame. Yeah, I know you, Pine Tree, stubborn. Fine, but watch out. There's something weird in the neighborhood, and I think it lives in a certain hard to reach cave, so you two be careful, OK? Sorry I can't be more specific. This is kind of a transition time for me, you know. The clam before the sturm und drang. Thanks for helping Billy out. When I'm more himself, I hope we can keep up our, excuse my French, _amitié_. OK, can't hang on. I'm gonna give the kid a happy dream of flying, make up for borrowing his vocal cords. Bye, Pine Tree! Buy gold!"

Billy's voice sank to a sleepy murmur, and then Dipper heard him chuckle. Maybe Bill had done what he'd said. He settled back down—

"Forgot, Pine Tree," Billy's soft voice came again. "Wish the big guy happy birthday for me. 'Scuse me, I've got a flight to catch."

Oh, yeah. Thursday was Soos's birthday—though he still preferred a very soft-pedaled celebration. Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy had gone in together to buy him a present. Dipper had almost forgotten.

He lay back in bed, convinced he wouldn't go to sleep again. Thanks, Bill. Just what I needed—vague predictions, some unknown rival lurking out there somewhere on the track of the treasure. And a haunted cave, probably. Have to talk it over with Wendy tomorrow. Wendy . . . sometimes I wish our touch telepathy . . . still worked over . . . distances . . . .

And before he knew it, Dipper was asleep. He had no flying dreams—none that he remembered—but he did dream about the time he'd gone into the Multibear's cave, already tired, half-terrified, but determined to become a man. The song "Disco Girl" kept running through his head.

Wendy woke him up early, and without disturbing Billy, the two went for their run, on the nature trail this time. Ever since Mabel's conjured storm had passed, the weather had been dry and warm, not hot. That Thursday morning was no exception. A few puffy cumulus clouds drifted across the sky, like white sheep grazing infinite blue pastures. As they ran, Dipper told Wendy about Bill, Billy, and the midnight warning.

"Typical," Wendy said. "Just like Cipher. Make everything some kind of puzzle. Surprised he didn't give you a cipher to solve, man."

"He used a French word," Dipper said. "Told me he hoped that after the, uh, change, he and I could keep up our _amitié_."

"And _amitié_, as you know, means friendship," Wendy said. "Somehow I can almost imagine shark music playing, Dip!"

"Do you think we should give up . . . looking for the treasure?"

"You gettin' short-winded already? Hmm. No, I don't think so. Just, you know—"

"We ought to be extra-careful."

"Right. There's Moon Trap. Once around and then home stretch. Don't lame out on me, Dipper!"

But Dipper had his second wind, and they circled the odd, perfectly circular pond, still as a mirror reflecting the sky, and then up the slope to the standing stone, looped around it, and they were on the far reaches of what Stan called the Mystery Trail again. Mile and a half back.

Wendy and Dipper followed their usual custom and slowed when they passed the Talking Rock, a phony Native American stone inscribed—by Stan himself—with ancient pre-Columbian symbols he found in an old book. If they made any sense, it was only to Stan himself. Ford, who even before Stan had known about the stone—but when he had first seen it, it had no inscriptions—had warned Stanley a few years back, "That stone is clearly fraudulent. Someone with no knowledge of ancient inscriptions put those markings on!"

"Interesting," Stan had said, stifling a grin. "Musta been some loon to do something as crazy as that."

"I concur," Stanford had said. "Hey, why did you punch my arm?"

* * *

Everyone was up when they got back to the Shack. They showered and changed clothes and came to breakfast. Billy was excitedly telling Soos, ". . . and then I was like Superman! I flew all around the Valley, and I could look down and see centaurs and mermaids and minotaurs and fauns and even a giant!"

"That is so cool, dawg!" Soos said. "Hey, you know what? You ought to write Gravity Falls fanfiction! Nobody does that. Well, I kinda do, but I haven't written a new story in a long time. You know what fanfiction is?"

"Soos," Mabel warned, "be careful what you tell Billy. Some fanfiction is en ess eff ess kay."

"Understood, Hambone!" Soos said. "Uh—what's that spell?"

"Not safe for school kids," Billy said. "Yeah, the kids at school talk about stuff like that."

"Don't you visit weird sites," Mabel said. "It could warp you forever. I mean, look at Dipper!"

"Hey!" Dipper said as he sat down with his plate of bacon, eggs, and home fries. "What are you guys even talking about?"

"That naughty stuff that warped weirdo people write and slap up on the Internet!" Mabel said.

"Those people are called fanfic writers," Soos explained.

"I'm not much good at telling stories," Billy said.

"You're good at other stuff, dude," Wendy said, joining them. "It'd be a boring world if everybody had exactly the same talents. Do what you enjoy."

And at that juncture Melody brought in a stack of pancakes—with a birthday candle planted in it. Little Soos ran to his dad. "Happy birthday, Daddy!" he said. And he started the song. Everyone joined in.

"Aw," Soos said as he, with his son's help, blew out the candle. "Thanks, dawgs. You guys never forget."

Then came the presents—Abuelita had knitted Soos a beautiful blanket with a question-mark design. Melody gave him a new sport jacket—Soos had lost some weight, and his old ones were baggy on him now. And Mabel gave him the birthday card that she, Wendy, and Dipper had picked out. It held a generous gift card to the local hardware store. "Dudes!" Soos said, turning pink. "This is, like, way too generous! But, uh, now I can get the pressure washer! Aw, thanks, guys!"

They congratulated him, and the mood was dampened only a little when Soos—as he did on every birthday—raised his glass of orange juice and said, "Here's to my dad. I always remember him on this day."

* * *

Mabel and Teek took that day off and went to the lake with Billy. They rented a boat and life jackets and took Billy out to tour Scuttlebutt Island and marvel at the Sociable Beavers, who generally let people alone unless they got too close. And they went round for a close look at the Falls, now in full flow again, or almost full. Mabel told Billy the story of the Gobblewonker—

And Billy said, "Like in the book! Is that where Dipper got the idea?"

"Well," Mabel said modestly, "I really gave him the idea, but that's what he based it on. But the story's a little different from reality."

"Can you do that in a story? Make it different?" Billy asked, sounding surprised.

"Of course!" Mabel said. "That's what 'fiction writer' means—somebody who tells lies for money!"

"Really?"

"Really—in a way," Mabel assured him. "Except 'fanfiction writer' means somebody who tells lies for no reason at all."

"Don't listen to her," Teek advised.

But Billy didn't pay him any attention. He was smiling ear-to-ear at Mabel, and if at that moment she'd told him he could really rise up in the air and fly, he would have tried it.

* * *

Business at the Shack was brisk, but not overwhelming. On a break, Dipper had time to talk to Jeff, who was still choreographing the dance team and still fretting that they weren't hitting the high mark of professionalism that he demanded—though the younger Gnomes were obviously having the time of their lives. And they were saving their pay and tips for mushrooms.

For some reason, Gnomes would do almost anything for mushrooms except pick them. They had some kind of deep-seated taboo against that. But if someone else picked them and gave them to a Gnome, they had a friend for life. And since the Gnomes had become an accepted part of Gravity Falls society, they had discovered they could walk into a grocery store with human money and exchange some of it for mushrooms. That had raised moral and ethical questions.

However, the former Queen—the badger, who sadly had since passed away—had decreed that buying mushrooms was the same as accepting them as a gift, but picking them was still an abomination. Or at least Jeff, who at that time had been the Queen's translator, had told everyone that. Nowadays he was the Prime Minister, and the Gnomes were, more or less, a democracy. They were still getting used to the idea.

Anyhow, after Jeff had exhorted his troupe and had told them to have some water and rest up for the next set, Dipper asked him about any haunted caves in the area.

"Oh, sure," he had said. "Lots of them. Take your pick."

"I don't know where they are."

"No," Jeff said patiently. "I mean take your pick if you go into one! Make sure the head is silver—"

"You've lost me," Dipper said.

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Look take some silver. Make a pickaxe head out of it. Sometimes it works against spooks, OK? Sometimes it doesn't."

"Oh," Dipper said. "Well, Wendy's got an axe that does the same kind of thing."

"Eh, not a Gnome weapon," Jeff said. "We were diggers, and we don't cut trees even to this day. A pick's a traditional Gnome tool and weapon—"

"Listen," Dipper said, "are there tales of a haunted cave that's up on the cliffs? Like halfway up or more?"

Jeff stroked his beard and frowned in concentration. "That's a little over our heads," he said. "Halfway up the bluffs, you mean? Can't think of any stories . . . but you can find some caves like that. Old waterfalls that dried up. There's three or four around."

"Any on the sunset side of the lake?" Dipper asked.

Gnomes gave directions in relation to the sun—sunrise meant east, sunset meant west, sunrise right hand was south, sunset right hand was north. Jeff looked mildly irked. "I know the human compass names," he said. "But, let me think, um . . . maybe one where the bluffs curve toward the _south_. That kind of cave is small, though, and hard to see from the ground. Or even from the top of a tree. You might ask a Manotaur. They know more about caves than almost anybody else."

"Thanks," Dipper said. "I'll try that. Uh—I don't suppose you know of any legends about a lovers' leap, do you? Where two lovers are chased by enemies and leap together from a high place? They die, but their enemies don't catch them."

"Lovers' leap? No, sorry. Must be a human thing. Gnomes are too down to earth to try something like that."

Which, Dipper reflected, was literally true. But it was time for him to go back to his register and for Jeff to climb on stage to introduce the next Gnome dance. Any more investigation would have to come later.


	11. Fish Story

**Lover** **s'** ** Leap**

(July 2017)

* * *

_11: Fish Story_

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: ** _Friday, July 14—This morning Grunkle Stan showed up and told Soos, "You look tired. Take a mental health day, and I'll step in as Mr. Mystery."_

_I don't know if it was Soos's idea or Stan's, but Soos asked Billy, "Hey, little dude, would you like to go fishing with Little Soos and me?"_

"_I don't know how," Billy said. "I haven't ever fished."_

"_That's cool, dawg. I got a boat on the lake, and I got all the normal fishing stuff, you know. Rods and reels and nets and lures and like that. We won't do anything fancy. If you want, go put some sunblock on and we'll go out and try our luck for a couple hours."_

_I could see that Billy was interested, so I told him, "Go ahead. Soos will watch out for you. But be sure to wear a life jacket, OK?"_

_They all took off in Soos's pickup. Melody laughed and said, "Soos always loves to go fishing, but he doesn't have much luck. They'll be back empty-handed this afternoon."_

_She was wrong. The pickup came back into the parking lot a little before noon—and Soos got out with a stringer of good-sized fish. Melody met him and the kids at the door and said, "I'm not going to clean those!"_

_But Soos said he had it covered, and he took them out back and did the chopping and the filleting and he even sealed up the leavings in a bag for the Gnomes, because they'll eat almost anything._

_I didn't understand, because normally Soos wets a line but comes back empty-handed. This time he had a smallmouth bass, a couple of bigmouth bass, and some miscellaneous others, mostly steelheads—the smallest, though, went about five pounds, not so shabby. He had enough for a fish fry that would feed everybody in the Shack, plus Stan and Sheila. I didn't get the story of how he did it until later that day._

* * *

Soos's boat, the _Cool Dad, _was the same as his first boat, the _Cool Dude, _in the sense that the museum exhibit of an axe would be the original one with which George Washington chopped down a cherry tree (not that he did that) if you allowed for the fact that since then its handle had been replaced six times and its head twice. The Gobblewonker hunt had left very little of the _Cool Dude_ intact, but Soos had salvaged the steering wheel and a few other pieces.

He bought a used boat from some guy for not too much money and did the work needed to fix it up. That included removing the wheel and replacing it with the one from his first boat, an act that in Soos's mind made his second boat his first boat, only repaired.

Anyway, he took the two boys to a cove that got some shade from overhanging trees. "Now, the water here drops off real fast, dudes," he told them. "Like if I jumped off the boat on this side, I'd be standing in water up to my waist, but if I jumped off that side, I'd, like, sink out of sight because the bottom there is about a fathom deep. I think a fathom is like thirty feet or some deal."

"Whoa!" Billy said.

"So, anyway, what I'm gonna do is drop this concrete block—it's an anchor, see, 'cause I wrote 'anchor' on it with a permanent marker—here on the shallow side, and we'll sit here and put our lines in the water on the deep side. I got some bait, so we won't use lures. Let me stick the bait on your hooks, 'cause the hooks are sharp and it's easy to jab your fingers, OK?"

Little Soos and Billy were happy to let him do that, since at the ranger station he had bought live hellgrammites to bait the hooks. These looked like a cross between a spider and a wasp and something from the creepy-crawly dimension.

As he worked, Soos explained, "Lots of places in Oregon, you can't use like live bait, but you have to use lures. But Lake Gravity Falls is one of the exceptions, and I think bait fishing is the easiest way to learn, so—here we go!"

Soos dropped the lines in—red-and-white bobbers, he explained, would show if they got a bite. "Don't do anything if it just jiggles up and down. If it, like, goes all the way under water, pull back on the rod and then hang on, because a fish will try to yank it out of your hands. You don't want that to happen, because if a fish got a rod, he might start to fish for people! That'd be a cool idea for a movie."

They waited quietly until Little Soos got restless—a grand total of three minutes and eleven seconds—and he started wanting to move his bait around. "You'll just scare off the fish," Soos told him. "Just stay put. See what happens."

Before long Billy asked, "Why can't we just tell the fish to eat the bait?"

"Dude, fish are notoriously bad listeners. Try explaining four-wheel drive to a trout. It'll just look at you. Seriously."

"Can I try?" Billy asked.

"Sure, knock yourself out," Soos said with an indulgent smile.

Billy lowered his chin to his chest, stared at the water, and didn't move or say anything. But then Soos's float dipped under the surface, then Little Soos's, and then Billy's. Soos netted his own catch, a five-pound bass, took out the hook, and dropped the fish into the live tank on the deck. By then Billy had hauled in his somewhat smaller fish, Soos repeated the unhooking and dumping, and by that time Little Soos was fighting hard as his rod bent nearly double, the line straight as a ruler, and the reel too difficult for the little boy to wind. "I think I got the bottom of the lake!" Little Soos yelled. "Help me, Daddy!"

Soos reached around and lent his muscles to his son, and between them they reeled in and pulled out a largemouth bass, seven pounds if it was an ounce, the largest so far that day. "Amazing, dawgs!" Soos said. "We'll cook these up tonight!"

"Let's catch some more," Billy said. "Do we got more bait?"

"Lots," Soos said. He re-baited all the hooks. "These are, like, dragonflies before they grow their wings. They call them hellgrammites, but there aren't, like, any real hellgrammites in Oregon, so these are whatchamacallits—dragonfly larvae, that's it. Bass love them, dudes!"

And almost as soon as the baited hooks went into the water, they had three more strikes. Soos hauled his in quickly and then helped Little Soos reel in an impressive steelhead trout. Billy nearly lost his catch, he was so excited, but he finally dragged in a juvenile sturgeon.

"Aw, that's a great catch, dawg," Soos said, "But I'm gonna let this guy go, OK? Sturgeons are, like, protected by the FBI or some deal, so I'll turn him loose." With pliers, he carefully removed the hook and then said, "Go, fish dude! Go meet a sturgeon wife and have some sturgeon babies!"

The torpedo-shaped fish gave a flirt of its tail and dived. It would be pleasant to think that it went on to father a line of sturgeons, but in fact thirty seconds after hitting the water and fifty feet below the surface, it got snarfed up by the, or at least a, Gobblewonker.

No, not one of McGucket's robots, but the real kind. It had been attracted by the crowds of fish that congregated below Soos's boat. Unlike the robotic lake monster, the real Gobblewonker(s) rarely came to the surface, disliking the sunlight. If people caught a glimpse of one at all, it was normally before dawn or after sunset. They came up to breathe twice a day. Nobody knows how they held their breath that long because they haven't been officially discovered yet.

"Wow!" Soos said after the three hauled in more fish. "This is, like, uncredible! I never have this kind of luck! I think Billy is like a fish magnet or some deal!"

"I'm just calling them," Billy said modestly.

"Well, keep it up one more time and then we'll have to call it a day because we can't haul any more fish! See this one? It's a steelhead trout. We can't legally keep any more bass, but these are OK. See if you can call them, right, Billy?"

And the next time, like magic, they pulled in three respectable steelheads. By then they were down to their last two baits, so Soos let the boys make the last couple of catches. Billy got another steelhead, the largest yet, and then Little Soos took one a couple of inches larger and nearly a pound heavier.

"That was a good day's fishing," Soos said. "And it's not even eleven o'clock yet! Let's go back to the dock and take these home, and we'll have, like, a fish feast tonight. Abuelita says her family always used to have fish on Fridays, so I know she'll like this!"

* * *

A fish feast it was indeed. Wendy, who had the most expertise of all the group in cooking fish—because of her experiences camping with her dad and brothers—supervised the preparation. Dipper could take fish or leave it most of the time, but the trout were tasty, and Abuelita had baked huge potatoes—gifts of Wendy's Aunt Sallie, who grew Norkota Russets—and slathered with butter, they were delicious sides, along with veggies and home-baked bread.

"Soos, where's your fishin' spot?" Stan demanded. Like Soos, he enjoyed fishing but rarely had much luck.

"It's off Tangle Point," Soos said. "'Bout ten yards offshore, where the big drop is. This is the first time there were so many fish, though. It was like they couldn't wait to get caught!"

"Gotta try that," Stan said. "What's your secret? What kinda bait did you use?"

"The hellgrammites you can buy in the lake shop, but you know they're really great big dragonfly pups," Soos said. "But that's what I always use, and most of the time I catch fish that are too, you know, small, and I have to return them to the waters whence they came."

"_Whence_?" Mabel asked.

"Shh, he's on a roll," Dipper whispered.

"I helped," Billy said.

Soos beamed. "That's right! The little dude caught a bunch of these, and he, like, mystically summoned them to the boat."

Stan gave Billy a hard glance. "Really?"

Billy nodded. "Yeah, you know, the way you do."

"How's that work, exactly?" Stan asked.

"Well—you know. You look in your head and find where the fish are, and you sort of tell them they can find food where the boat is. And they come."

"Oh, yeah," Stan said. "That old fisherman's trick. Good for you!"

Soos said, "This reminds me that old TV show I used to watch when I was little! It was about this whispering dude who whispered to horses. And the horses would listen to him whispering and would do whatever he whispered to tell them to do! And I think the show was called—" he frowned, and then finished triumphantly, "_Harley Quinn, Medicine Doctor!"_

Stan gave Soos a gaze of disbelief, and then he turned and all but imperceptibly twitched his head at Dipper. After dinner and after clean-up, Stan said, "Hey, Dip, I got something at home you'd like to see. A specimen of mineral. Walk me down and take a look at it."

Out on the lawn, Dipper asked, "What's—"

"Sh, sh, sh," Stan whispered. "Wait a minute."

They arrived at Stan's house, and went downstairs to his den. "Justice of the Peace?" Dipper asked, catching sight of the plaque on the door.

"Yeah, just a gag, a buddy gave that to me as a joke," Stan said. "Come in and sit down." He carefully closed the door and then sat in the desk chair. "OK, Dip, I had Poindexter do the voodoo unicorn-hair border double strong around this room. So I think we can't be spied on here by you-know-who. What's this bit about him callin' fish?"

"It's new to me," Dipper said. "He never said anything to me about it."

"Yeah, I don't like it. I don't remember Bill Cipher so clear, but from what my Brainiac brother says, Cipher used to control animals. I dunno. Maybe this givin' Bill a second chance ain't the brightest idea that Axo-what'll ever had. Look, I'm gonna get Ford up here. I want Soos to come down and tell him the whole story, so don't make a big deal of it or let Billy know, but give Soos the word, OK?"

"Sure," Dipper said.

Stan picked up the phone and speed-dialed. "Hiya, Lorena!" he said cheerfully. "Look, is my brother busy?"

She said something, and Stan replied, "Ah, he can write in his Journal any time. Interrupt him and tell him to get up to our house pronto. He'll find me in the den. And if he's mad, tell him to come yell at me, not you. Ah-ha-ha, glad to hear it! What? Shopping trip? Yeah, I'll have Sheila call you tomorrow to set it up. Thanks, kid."

He hung up, beaming. "Lorena says that Ford and her have never had one cross word. Me and Sheila sometimes do—'cause it's so much fun makin' up! Word to the wise, Dip. Don't deprive Wendy of innocent fun. OK, run back and ask Soos to come and see us. And for the time being, do the world a favor and keep an eye on Billy."


	12. Sending Billy Home

**Lover** **s'** ** Leap**

(July 15, 2017)

* * *

_12: Sending Billy Home_

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines: ** _Saturday, July 15: It's fairly late, and we just got back from having dinner with Great-Uncle Ford and Lorena, so I'm catching up on a few things. Let's see. Early this morning, Ford called me—I mean real early, even before Wendy and I did our run! Stan had told him about the fish-calling thing that Billy had done on Soos's boat, and he had me tell what I remembered. "Is this dangerous?" I asked him when I finished._

_Ford took some long seconds before replying: "If it's limited to fishing, I'd say no. Did Billy seem to take glee in what he'd done? As if he enjoyed dominating the fish?"_

_That made me think for a bit._ "_No. It was more like—well, like he just thought that was how every fisherman did it. Like he expected that we all understood what he meant."_

"_You know, I'd hypothesize that if Billy tried that anywhere other than Gravity Falls, it wouldn't work. This is a center of vitality for Bill Cipher. He has a kind of resonance with his former self here in the Valley. No, if he's not glorying in being able to control other living creatures, I'd say our best path with this is watchful waiting. Now, I understand Billy is returning to Piedmont today?"_

"_This afternoon. Soos says Wendy and I can take him to the airport. We'll have to leave at two, so we're getting off work early. I think Mabel's a little ticked off, because she's like to drive him to the airport, but Soos is giving her a long lunch break so she can take Billy into town for pizza and ice cream, and then she'll ride along with us because she's got the Escort Pass to see him to the right boarding gate."_

_Grunkle Ford sounded both amused and appalled, all at the same time: _"_My word! Pizza and ice cream? Before a flight?"_

"_I know, Grunkle Ford, but—well, you know Mabel. In her opinion, barf bags just enhance the airline experience."_

"_Well—at least caution Billy to eat abstemiously. What pleases Mabel doesn't work for everyone! And, um, just as a precaution—"_

"_Tell Billy where to find the barf bag and explain and how to use it," I said._

_He chuckled. "I think your talent for telepathy may be growing stronger!"_

_That made me smile._ "_No—I've just learned to think like you and try to foresee problems."_

"_I'm flattered," he said. "Well—perhaps after you return from the airport, you and Wendy can drop in. Lorena and I will give you dinner and I'll debrief you about Billy's visit."_

_I said that sounded good, and so that was the plan._

* * *

That Saturday morning, in preparation for seeing Billy off, Mabel was more than solicitous. She insisted on loading him up with souvenirs from the gift shop—using her employee discount—until Dipper finally had to intervene: "Sis, if he gets much more, he'll have to check his luggage, and you know what a hassle that is!"

So they winnowed the armful of items that Billy was carrying, some of which he didn't even want, but which he was too polite to decline when Mabel endorsed them. So, no Mystic Mystery Shack (about six inches on a side, plastic, designed in the shape of the Shack, but with a round dark window in the bottom that predicted the future using a Magic 8-Ball style polyhedron that floated up with the messages). He also relinquished the Mystic Viewer, a 3-d viewer that used ten disks of tiny transparent photos to show three-dimensional views of the wonders of the Valley—"It doesn't work for me," he explained apologetically.

Wendy kindly suggested that Mabel substitute a thinner book of color photos (heavy on the exhibits in the Shack museum, but with lots of landscapes and other illustrations), which covered the same ground and didn't demand two eyes to function fully.

Still, Billy was going home with a Mystery Trail board game that he could play with his sisters, which worked by rolling dice and advancing on a trail through the Valley. Each player tried to collect cards with one of dozens of supernatural creatures or places on it, and at the end of the game each card added to the players' score, so it was possible for someone who came in third in the race to the finish to collect enough cards to squeak out a winning score.

He also had a snow globe showing the Shack in Christmas mode, a keychain, charm bracelets for his sisters, the _Mystery Meat! _cookbook that Stan, with vigorous help from Sheila, Lorena, and Susan Wentworth, had compiled. Despite the title, it was a down-to-earth, basic cookbook of favorites with very little of the supernatural about it, but Mabel had provided colorful cartoon illustrations, and it was cute.

She still complained that Dipper got royalties for his books, but she didn't for that one.

Anyway, the cookbook was for Billy's mom, and another deluxe keychain was for his dad. It would hold all of his keys, and it had a miniature flying saucer that doubled as a handy pocket flashlight. And thanks to Fiddleford, its battery and bulb had a fifty-year life expectancy.

Billy himself chose a wall decoration for his room back in Piedmont: a two-foot by two-foot sepia-toned map of the Valley, with all the scenic and mysterious spots marked and numbered. An accompanying booklet gave sketches and little snippets of information about each, like this:

* * *

_15-Scuttlebutt Island: Always shrouded in fog, this lake isle is home to unnaturally intelligent beavers and is rumored to feature an underwater cave that is the den of the fabled and feared Gobblewonker lake monster._

* * *

The Gnomes even invited Billy to help them in their dance, not by dancing, but by playing along with the Gnome Dancing Band ("We may not be good, but gosh, are we LOUD!"). Since the instrument he played was the kazoo, he had a great time and afterward the Gnomes clapped him on the back and congratulated him.

Backstage, Jeff said, "Not bad, kiddo! Hey, next time you visit, we'll take you to Gnome Man's Land and you can enjoy an authentic Gnome spa bath!"

"Ixnay on the irrels-squay!" Mabel said, making a throat-cutting gesture.

Jeff looked startled, and he coughed. "Oh, yeah. Well maybe not, but instead—we'll take you up and let you tour a Gnome house in the trees. You get a terrific view!"

"Of what?" Billy asked.

"Other trees!"

Then just before two, as Wendy and Dipper checked out, Billy came to the counter and asked in a whisper, "Can I buy this?"

Dipper looked at the trinket. "Are you sure?"

Billy nodded. "I'm a little scared, but—yeah. Please."

What the heck, it was only fifty cents. So Dipper sold him a big round metal pin-back button that bore an illustration of the Gravity Falls Zodiac, yellow against black.

And in the center of the ring of symbols—an image of Bill Cipher himself, of course, without his cane, but with top hat, tie, and inscrutable gaze. "Pack it in your carry-on until you get home," Dipper told him. "You have to go through the metal detector, you know."

"Yeah, I did in Piedmont, too. That makes me feel weird. But it doesn't hurt."

* * *

Earlier, Teek had made Dipper and Wendy a couple of burgers for lunch, and Mabel and Billy had eaten in town, so they were ready to go.

As they started, with Wendy at the wheel of her Dodge Dart, she said, "I think I found what needs to be fixed in your car, Dip. If Steve will let me use one of his garage bays, I can take care of the labor in four to six hours. It's not major yet, but something you'll need to take care of. Gonna cost some in parts, though—I'm guesstimating three hundred fifty, along in there."

"What's the problem?" Dipper asked. His dad and mom had given him the car as a graduation present, and though it was used, a mechanic had gone over it and it had been in apparently fine shape.

"I'm pretty sure the head gasket's got a tiny leak," Wendy said. "It's causing a real occasional misfire, so I don't think there's any major damage in there yet. Better let it rest until we can get to it, though. OK with you if we go ahead and schedule some garage time?"

"Sure," Dipper said. "I've got more than enough in savings for that. I'll help out all I can, too."

"Wow," Billy said from the back seat. "You can fix _cars_?"

Wendy laughed. "Yeah, dude! I'm pretty good at it. I kinda trained for it, but I think I have a talent. Like you have a talent for calling fish!"

"Oh, cool!" Billy said.

Mabel said, "Yeah, everybody has talents. I was gonna give you this in the airport, but—heck, I can't wait, so here you go!"

She handed him a six-by-nine inch book. "What is it?"

"Open it," she suggested.

He did. "Did you draw all these?"

"Yup, and painted lots of 'em too," Mabel said. "That's my talent!"

Billy went through and then passed the book up to Dipper, who hadn't known his sister was working on the project. It was a sketch pad with forty-eight thick pages, and on each page Mabel had drawn something—people or things or landscapes. There in water color was the Mystery Shack in all its summertime glory, and a colored pencil sketch of Soos at the wheel of his boat, and another water color of the whole Ramirez family playing with the kids, and Waddles with Billy riding on his back, a pen, ink, and pastel rendering of Grunkle Stan in Mr. Mystery regalia, the elder and the younger Mystery Twins posing as if they were on a movie poster—Dipper holding a Journal and Mabel brandishing a grappling hook.

And a pointillist picture Mabel had done of Wendy with her axe, leaning against a pine tree, pen-and-ink scenes of waterfalls, a woodpecker-trap tree, the water tower, and mysterious caves, the Dwarf Dance caught mid-frenzy, another water color of the bonfire clearing with a nice fire going and Grunkle Stan obviously telling ghost stories to Soos, Dipper, Wendy, and Mabel, and the big Paul Bunyan statue downtown and—

Well, it was a compendium of Gravity Falls. Wendy sneaked some looks at it when she was halted at stop signs and stoplights, and she said, "Mabes! You should totally design a Gravity Falls calendar! But get Stan to agree to give you a royalty for each one he sells!"

"Yeah," Mabel said. "We've sold out of the posters I did. That's a great idea! Thanks! That would buy me snacks all through college!"

Dipper looked at the last page, an exquisite ink-and-watercolor sketch of the Shack buttoned up for winter, with snow on the ground and on the roof, stars overhead, smoke coming from the chimney, and warm yellow light spilling from the windows. It gave him a peaceful, contented vibe, like coming home after a long absence. "These are really great, Sis," he said, handing the book back to Billy. "Hey, have her sign this. She'll be a famous artist soon!"

"Oh, stop it," Mabel said. "But yeah, I'll autograph it and personalize it just for you, Billy! And Dip—what do you mean, _soon_?"

* * *

Mabel was in a good mood, and she led them in some car karaoke, though she had to teach the lyrics to Billy, and so they passed the time until they pulled into the airport short-term parking. They all went into the terminal, located Billy's gate—again on the A/B concourse—and while Mabel escorted Billy through Security and to his gate, Wendy and Dipper settled in at the terminal Starbucks and had coffee together.

"I didn't use to like coffee," Dipper said, taking a sip. "Now I look forward to it."

"Dude, one thing I learned by going to night classes is that college students run on coffee," Wendy said.

He nodded, thoughtfully, and began, "Looking at Mabel's sketchbook—." But he trailed off.

"It's beautiful," Wendy said. "I hope Billy realizes what a special gift it was."

Dipper nodded. "I hope so, too. But—you know, to me it was like seeing the Falls through her eyes. Everything in her sketches and paintings looks, how can I put it—a little better than real! Kind of a new way for me to see it all, too."

"Didn't take my art appreciation course yet," Wendy said, "but isn't that what art is supposed to do? Open us up to new ways of seeing and understanding?"

Dipper smiled. "I guess. All I know is, my Sis is a lot better at it than I usually realize. I get used to thinking of her as funny and goofy, but there's—you know, there's a wonderful side to Mabel that she doesn't often show me. It makes me sad that come fall she and I will go our different ways."

"Well, not so much," Wendy said. "Olmsted is only about three-four miles form Western Alliance. We'll probably see her every day, or almost."

"Still won't quite be the same as living under one roof, but, yeah. And I realize she has her own life to lead. I know that intellectually. It's still gonna be an emotional jolt, though."

Wendy laid her hand on his. _We'll always include her when we're up to something special, Dip._

—_Thanks for understanding._

_Hey, that's what I'm here for! Well, that and keepin' you from having to rebuild your engine when we can just replace a head gasket. But first—we gonna go searching for our treasure cave tomorrow?_

—_I'm looking forward to it._

They sat close together, holding hands and silently communing. And passers-by at the airport looked at them and smiled, thinking "There are two people deeply in love."


	13. Little Flashes

**Lovers'** ** Leap**

(July 15, 2017)

* * *

_13: Little Flashes_

_Piedmont, California, Saturday afternoon, 4:42_

Billy Sheaffer was first off the airplane! He came bounding out of the jetway door into the gate area and his dad saw him and waved. "Right here, Billy!"

"Dad! Dad!" Billy struggled toward him, lugging the carry-on case that was almost too much for him, and his dad hugged him. "Aw, Dad," Billy grumbled happily, but he hugged back. "They upgraded me! I got to ride in First Class! Because Mabel asked the lady at the desk, 'Pleeeease!'"

"That's great! Was it fun?" his dad asked, moving Billy out of the stream of deplaning travelers.

"Yeah! They gave me free food!"

Dr. Sheaffer hefted the bag with no trouble. "Let me take that. This way! Sound the trumpet!"

"Rrra-ta-ta-taa!" Billy said, but not too loud. He'd enjoyed doing that when he was ten, but now, coming up on twelve, he was beginning to have his doubts about how well playing air trumpet boosted his social status.

They hurried through the airport and out to the parking area, Dr. Sheaffer stowed the suitcase in the trunk of the family car, and then they got in. "Buckle up!" Billy's dad ordered. "You know the raging wilderness that is Oakland at rush hour!"

That . . . was and wasn't true. Rush hour was in full swing, and it slowed their drive considerably, making it not raging but frankly boring. It was normally just a few minutes, but it looked as if it were going to stretch out to a half hour, and Billy couldn't contain himself and started telling the story of his visit to his dad, although he'd planned to tell everyone that evening.

He was still chattering when they got home, Mom hugged him, Mina (his sixteen-year-old sister) said, "Hi, Squirt!" and Mira (his_ other_ sixteen-year-old sister) said, "Oh, have you been away?" and he excitedly asked them all to listen, listen, listen! And he had presents!

Billy gave the girls the charm bracelets—they seemed amused, but pleased, and they put them on at once—and Mom the cookbook. "_Mystery Meat?_" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Look at the title page!" Billy said.

She opened it and read aloud: "_Mystery Meat: You'll Wonder Why It's All so Delicious._ A cookbook for all the delights and delectables of the most mysterious place in Oregon: Gravity Falls."

"That sounds more promising," Dad put in.

Mom laughed. "Look at the table of contents. These little cartoons are funny!"

Billy had dropped to the floor—Mom was on the sofa—and he bounced on his knees. "I know! I know! Guess who the artist is? Guess! You can't guess. It's Mabel! Mabel Pines! She lives right down the street!"

"No way!" Mira said, coming to look over Mom's shoulder.

Mom leafed through the recipes, not reading them, but looking at the funny cartoon sketches, and the twin girls laughed at them or said, "So cute!"

Billy gave Dad his present. "A flying saucer?" Dad asked with a smile, holding the keychain by the ring and dangling the decoration. "Great, but I teach history, not science fiction!"

"Look, look," Billy said. He turned on the flashlight function.

"Whoa!" Dad said. "That's bright!"

"Yeah, and the battery won't ever run out!" Billy said. "Oh, and here's something Dipper showed me. Look, turn the top to the right until it clicks. Wait just a second—"

A clear AI voice from a tiny speaker said, "Your current location is 37.82 degrees North, 122.22 degrees West. North is this direction." And a red light blinked on one side of the rim of the UFO. Then the voice said, "Your approximate location is Piedmont, California."

"You can't ever get lost!" Billy said.

"Well, this is useful!" Dr. Sheaffer said. "Thanks, Billy!"

Then they had to look at his book of photos and Mabel's sketchbook—Mira said, "I like the art even better than the pictures!"

Later, when they had finished dinner, Billy went upstairs to his bedroom—which at one time had been Dipper's, before the Pines family had moved—and he took down his poster of Megarobots and replaced it with the map of Gravity Falls. And still later, when he lay in bed, he held the big round decorative pin in his palm and stared at the picture of the Gravity Falls Zodiac—he fleetingly wondered what all those symbols meant—and then for a long time at the sketch of Bill Cipher.

"I'm not afraid of you," he assured it.

And he put the pin on his bedside table, turned off the light, and fell asleep.

* * *

_Gravity Falls, Oregon, 8:07 PM, Saturday_

Ford had a harder time getting on Soos's wavelength than Stan ever did. "So," he said at last, "you didn't notice there was anything odd about the way your fishing luck changed with Billy aboard your boat?"

"Aw, no, Dr. Pines," Soos said. "You know, odd is, like, relative, right? Like you and Mabel. I mean, let's face it, dude, I grew up here!" He chuckled. "When you live in Gravity Falls all your life, odd is like when you go somewheres else, you know? And instead of seeing a Gnome run across the road, it's a deer or a chipmunk or some deal, and _that_ looks bizarre!"

"I see," said Ford, who didn't. "But back to Billy—did he do anything to summon the fish? Whistle? Chant something? Make hand gestures? Anything?"

"Um—he sat, like, real quiet, man. The way Little Soos never does! He's got energy he hasn't even used yet! But Billy, when I told them they had to be quiet, he got, like, quiet! Let me see. He kinda tilted his head forward like this—oh, man, I can't do it the way he did it 'cause I still got one chin too many! But he put his jaw down on his chest and sat still, and wham! The fish started biting like we were fleas and they were dogs or some deal."

In his notebook, Ford wrote _No incantations or visual/auditory summoning. Unless hypersonic? Perhaps mental visualization and projection. _Aloud, he asked, "How long did your run of fishing luck last?"

"Oh, man, I didn't time it! Is that important? I didn't know it was important!"

"An estimate will do," Ford reassured him.

"OK, so we were there like at nine-thirty, I think. Wait a minute!" Soos took out his wallet. "I bought some bait, and I think I got the receipt in here. Yeah, here it is—let me see. Bought the bait at 9:44, it says here. And then we went and checked out the boat, gassed up, and we sailed over to Tangle Point. You know where that is?"

"Yes, I know exactly where it is," Ford said.

"Yeah, it's where this tall ridge, like, goes right down into the water, you know? And the redwoods are like real tall on the ridge, so up until noon you can be a ways out and still be in the shade. OK, so we anchored—well, we cinder-blocked, anyways—and then I got out the rods and reels, you know, and I had to bait the hooks and all, so I'd say it was, like, a few minutes after ten before we started fishing. And then I guess the fish started to bite at, like, ten-thirty or some deal? And it kept up, I don't know, for twenty minutes?"

"That's close enough," said Ford, scribbling the information down. "Now, when you stopped fishing and headed back, did you notice anything peculiar about Billy?"

"Um, no. Well, he was excited that we'd caught fish. He kept looking in the live well—you know on a boat, that's where you put the fish you catch, it's got like water in it because they wouldn't be comfortable without water, and it was way crowded. But I did notice one kinda strange thing."

"What was that?" Ford poised his pen.

"Well, until we, like, turned toward the dock, we had an escort. I mean, I could see the fish all around us, like porpoises following a ship, you know? Only they didn't jump or anything, but they were close to the surface, and in a ring about, I don't know, ten feet wide or something like that, they swam all around the boat as we went in. 'Course, I wasn't going real fast. But then when I did the turn, they just, like, lost interest and swam away. Or is it swum? That's a funny word."

"Yes," Ford, who was getting the hang of Soos, agreed. "How long was the trip back?"

"About as long as the one out," Soos said. "I mean, like, quarter of an hour? Tangle Point's not so far from the docks, you know. It's at the mouth of that long deep cove. Dude, I remember this one time in high school, me and some buddies were fishing off the bank there and Ralph, like, he slid down the bank and into the water, and he was gone like a magic trick! But this mermaid pushed him out and told him to watch where he put his damn feet. That was the way she talked! In front of kids! And her b-o-o-b-i-e-s were showing! That was a good day.'

"You saw one of the merfolk," Ford said flatly. He'd heard rumors, and he'd stalked them for months at a time, but he'd never caught sight of one.

"She was green," Soos said. "And really not very hot looking, if you know what I mean." He chuckled. "But boobies, man!"

Ford gave a mental shrug and jotted down _Note to self: Resume investigation of merfolk rumors._

* * *

_Gravity Falls, 10:37 PM_

As Teek, Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper walked out of the Royal Ragtime Cinema (they had seen _Monkey Business 2 – Even Monkeyer), _Wendy said, "Mabel, really, I wish I'd got a better look at your sketches. You've got real talent. Seriously."

"Aw," Mabel said, "it was just my jot book. I'd been drawing and painting in it over the last couple summers, but they were just, you know, practice."

"Practice, nothing," Dipper said. "Those are great!"

"Yeah," Teek agreed. "Definitely go to Stan with the calendar idea! You're nearly professional. Ouch. Or absolutely professional!"

"That's better," Mabel said, kissing his cheek. "Yeah, I'll talk it over with Stan. If he'll bankroll it, I'll do the art. But I'm gonna demand a piece of the action!"

"He'll be so proud of you," Dipper said. They reached Helen Wheels, Mabel unlocked it—in Gravity Falls there was less chance of a car's being stolen from a parking lot than of it being dumped on by a flying pterodactyl, but locking it had become a habit—and Dipper opened the back door for Wendy.

"I've got an idea," Dipper said. "The TV show based on my books is supposed to debut next spring. I'll see if my agent can get in touch with the TV people, and maybe, if there's any merchandise associated with the show, Mabel could get a gig doing illustrations."

"You mean like comic books?" Mabel asked from behind the wheel. "Seatbelts!"

"Buckled," all three passengers said in unison.

Dipper said, "I don't know. Uh—lunch boxes?"

Mabel snorted. "So one decade ago!"

"Well—mouse pads?"

"Phone covers!" Wendy said. "One with the twins on it!"

"Or the Mystery Mansion," Teek said.

"Bobblehead toys," Dipper suggested. "All the characters from the show. And the monsters. The lake monster, the Gnarls—"

Wendy laughed. "Oh, if they do that one Gnarl that barfs rainbows—"

"Never get on kid's TV," Dipper said.

"Well," Wendy went on, "if they do—like a plush toy of that!"

"Stickers!" Mabel said. "A whole book worth of puffy stickers!"

Teek said, "And maybe some fast-food places will want tie-ins—decorations for kids' meals, you know. Or little toys."

"Yeah," Mabel said. "Call your agent on Monday, Dip! Tell her that if they want some samples, I can give them sketches that look more like the characters than either the artwork they sent you from the TV show or the covers of the books! Those things look so cartoony!"

"I kind of like them," Teek said.

"Yeah, cartoony's good," Wendy said. "Helps tell kids that though the book's scary, it's a lot of fun, too."

"OK, I can do cartoony," Mabel said as she made the turn toward the Shack. "But if they expect me to sell out—"

"What?" Dipper asked.

"They better have a high offer! And then double it!" Mabel said.

"Grunkle Stan," said Dipper, "will definitely be proud of you."

* * *

_Just outside Gravity Falls Valley, near midnight_

The sign read WECLOME TO ROADKILL COUNTY.

It had been designed by the same person who'd created the sketch for the big WELCOME TO GRAVITY FALLS sign on the frame between the split cliffs—though that had since been spell-checked and corrected.

Since his research in the library, the short, husky man had learned rather a lot about this place and the people.

He knew that Dr. Stanford F. Pines was President and Founder of the Institute of Anomalous Sciences. He knew that one of his research assistants, Mason Pines, was either his nephew or his grand-nephew. Wendy Corduroy was not on the radar, though.

He knew a little bit about the Mystery Shack, but that was nearly as cloudy as his knowledge of Wendy—Stanford Pines was the founder not only of a college but also of what sounded like a cheesy tourist trap. Yet he was the author of a raft of scientific articles, and for three of them Mason Pines was listed as co-researcher or as photographer.

But what he'd seen of the advertising for the Mystery Shack made it seem decidedly non-academic.

Oh, well. He had his own concerns. Finding that the Institute was closed for the summer—no summer sessions, odd, but it was an odd educational institution, though fully accredited—he had learned that the president of the research university lived in the little town of Gravity Falls.

And maybe, he thought, he had been off the track all those years. He'd believed the Chinook legends must have been set farther to the west, on the western slopes of the Cascades, but evidently—if what he'd recently learned was true—they might, possibly, have taken place on the eastern side.

Well, maybe he and Stanford Pines could compare notes.

He was unsure of that. He had no real academic standing and in fact felt rather abashed in the presence of experts. So many of them had indulgently smiled at him or had even told him straight out, "Those are fairy tales. They're not suitable material for research."

Thirty years he'd put into it, though, as a hobby. Now that he was retired, he felt a drive to look for the truth. He was sixty. He didn't know how much time he might have left.

Well—drive into the Valley, look for a motel with a vacancy, and tomorrow take his bearings. And on Monday, if the people in the town were helpful, maybe he could locate Dr. Stanford F. Pines.

And there was a chance—just a chance—that this academic might help him, or at least listen to him without scoffing.

"Here we go," he said. He'd stopped his car off on the shoulder. Now he put it in gear and drove through the split cliffs and into Gravity Falls.

Behind him, a muscle car quietly pulled out and followed him, a big cat stalking blissfully unaware prey.


	14. Law and Disorder

**Lovers'** ** Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_14: Law and Disorder_

Any time a knock at your door comes with the loud advice, "Police! Open up!" is probably not a good time.

Frowning, still in his bathrobe at five A.M., Stanford Pines muttered, "What in God's name?" and opened the door. Blubs and Durland stood on the porch.

Durland took off his Mountie-style hat and said, "Good morning, Ma'am. Is Doctor Pines in?"

"This_ is _Doctor Pines, Durland," Blubs said. "Sorry. He's reacting to your bathrobe."

"What's wrong?" Ford asked, his heart thumping. "Is Dipper or Mabel—?"

"Now, now," the sheriff said. "They're fine, far's we know. This ain't about them. But we have a perp in the holding cell—"

"We call it that," put in Durland helpfully, "'cause that's where we hold 'em until they're charged, see?"

"No," Ford said.

"Thing is," Blubs said, his eyes invisible behind his ever-present dark green shades, "this fella says he was on the way to visit you. Were you expecting him?"

"Whom?"

"The guy in the cell," Durland explained.

"But who is he?"

"The man who came to visit you."

"What's his name?" Ford asked, feeling his blood pressure rising.

"First," Blubs said, "just tell us if you were expecting anyone. Friend, business contact, insurance salesman, anybody?"

Ford shook his head. "No, but—"

"Who is it?" Lorena called from behind him.

"It's the sheriff and a deputy," Ford said over his shoulder.

"Coffee's ready. Invite them in."

A root canal was one of the many things Stanford Pines would have preferred, but he put on a strained smile and said, "Would you gentlemen care for coffee?"

"Hoo-ee!" Durland said, pushing past him.

"You'll have to excuse him," Blubs said as he entered more sedately. "He needs that coffee to kick-start him this early in the morning."

From the kitchen, Durland's delighted voice yelled, "Come on! They got coffee cake!"

Blubs took hold of Ford's elbow—Ford had to resist the urge to break the grip and use some of his martial-arts knowledge against the rotund sheriff—and steered him back to the kitchen. Durland was perched on a stool at the counter, already munching on a slice of coffee cake, and Lorena, demure in her rose-embroidered bathrobe, was pouring them all cups of coffee.

"Thank you kindly!" Blubs said, settling onto a stool next to Durland. He glugged some cream into his cup and took a long swallow. "That is good coffee, Missus Pines!"

Ford poured himself half a cup in a Mystery Shack mug—Stan gave them mugs at every opportunity—and sipped it black. "You were telling me about your visitor," he said.

Around a mouthful of pastry and icing, Durland said, "Prisoner. We busted him good!"

Blubs chuckled as he took about a third of the coffee cake for himself. "We sure did! He came driving into town at midnight! Mighty suspicious!"

"And he only stopped for two potatoes at the stop sign," Durland added.

"Potatoes?" Ford asked, puzzled.

"You know, it's the way you count off seconds," Blubs said. "One potato, two potato, three potato, like that. It's an ordinance in town that you have to come to a full stop at stop signs and count three potatoes, and this driver didn't. So we lit him up!"

"He didn't have a valid Oregon license," Durland said. "So I throwed the book at him!"

"Fortunately," Blubs said, "it was just the D.O.T. pamphlet on basic rules for motorists. It didn't hurt him."

"Wait," Lorena said. "You detained him?"

"Locked him up!" Durland said. "Held him until we could check out his probably fake driver's license!"

Ford frowned. "I thought you said he didn't have one—"

"Oh, he had a license," Blubs said. "From _California_." Sarcasm dripped like syrup off pancakes from the way he said the state's name.

Durland pointed at Ford with his fork. "You know how easy a California driver's license is to fake?"

"No," Ford said.

Durland looked disappointed. "Rats. I was hopin' I could find out."

"Anyway," Blubs said, "turns out his license is valid, so he just owes a fine. But before I let him loose, I asked him his business, and he said he was coming to visit you." He took of his hat and pulled a couple of folded pieces of paper from inside. He opened one and stared at it. "Ever hear of a Mr. Leon Markheim?"

Ford shook his head and glanced at Lorena, who said, "I don't know the name."

"Sure you do," Durland said helpfully. "The Sheriff just told it to you."

"Well," Blubs went on, "he said you might not recognize his name, but he asked us to give you this and see if it made a difference." He handed the other folded paper over to Ford.

Ford unfolded it and saw that it was a sheet from a departmental memo pad. The printed heading was _THE GRAVITY FALLS/ROADKILL COUNTY CONSOLIDATED DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT._

In smaller printed letters at the bottom was the motto: _GF/RKCDOLE—"To Protect and Serve."_

In between, someone with clear handwriting had printed, "Tachimo and Chicha-ko. Lovers' Leap. We should talk. Leon Markheim."

"Mean anything to you?" Blubs asked.

"Yes. Let me get dressed and I'll go see him."

Ford hurried to their bedroom and quickly donned khakis, a mulberry-colored turtleneck, and reached for his overcoat. He paused with his hand on the sleeve. _I'm dressing for an adventure. Maybe—_

So he returned wearing a beige sport jacket instead. Lorena asked, "Do you want to shave first?"

Ford ran his palm over his chin. "I think I'll wait," he said.

Durland seemed to be on the tail end of telling an anecdote—"So he asks us, where's a motel, and so we said, we got your room covered!"

Lorena said, "Dear, this gentleman needs accommodation. If you'd like to offer him the guest room—"

"We don't even know him," Ford said.

"See what you think. But feel free to make the offer," Lorena said.

Ford smiled, kissed her, and thought what a lucky man he'd turned out to be.

* * *

Markheim did not look like any kind of threat. Chubby, deeply tanned, not old but past middle age, he sat forlornly on the edge of a cot, in wrinkled charcoal-gray suit pants and a white shirt. "Dr. Pines?" he asked hopefully when they came in, reaching to the bed to retrieve round spectacles that gave him the appearance of an absent-minded owl.

"Yes," Ford said.

The prisoner stood. "These men said I could go if you would vouch for me."

Fortunately, Durland had lingered behind. To Blubs, Ford said, "Certainly I'll vouch for Mr. Markheim. What's his fine?"

"Let me see, one potato short—that will be twenty dollars in pen—no, force of habit. Twenty dollars, cash only."

"I have credit cards," the man said. "But only seventeen dollars in cash."

Ford took a twenty from his wallet. "Here. Can we expedite this?"

"Sure thing."

An expedited hour later, Ford showed Mr. Markheim into the Pines house. "I don't know about you," he told his visitor, "but I haven't had breakfast yet."

"Oh, I haven't, either," Markheim said, looking ill at ease in his rumpled suit and black tie—the sheriff had temporarily confiscated that for fear his prisoner might hang himself, but now he looked more likely to starve. "In fact, I haven't eaten since—um. Since breakfast yesterday."

Lorena said briskly, "How about ham and eggs, toast, home fries?"

Markheim said, "That sounds wonderful. If there's an ATM in town, I can repay—"

"Nonsense," Lorena said. "Ford show him where the guest room is. If you want to take a quick shower and tidy up, I'll have breakfast ready in about twenty minutes."

Markheim put his suitcase in the guest room and said quietly and shyly, "I don't know how to thank you, Dr. Pines. Maybe by giving you some information—or exchanging some."

"We'll talk about it after breakfast," Ford said. "Make yourself at home."

Both men, newly shaved, sat at the breakfast table. Ford normally didn't have much of an appetite for breakfast, but along with his customary orange, he had a single fried egg and a small slice of ham—he had never observed dietary restrictions particularly—along with another mug of coffee.

Lorena had good judgment regarding men and food. She'd fried three eggs for Markheim, along with two slices of ham and a full serving of potatoes and a couple of thick slices of sourdough toast. The short man ate eagerly—Ford sensed he was holding back out of sheer manners—and Lorena asked sympathetically, "Didn't they feed you in the jail?"

"No," Markheim said. "It was too late last night and too early this morning. I don't think I could have eaten, anyway. That was the first time in my whole life I've been stopped by the police—well, I mean random license checks, two of those, I think, but I mean stopped for a violation. And I didn't expect to be charged under the potato law or whatever it was. Yes, another cup, thank you. This is delicious coffee."

"I apologize for your treatment," Ford said. "The local law-enforcement officers don't get much of a chance to work at their profession, so when one comes, they treat it with unseemly enthusiasm."

"I didn't know," Markheim said. "I don't have any other police to compare them to, I suppose. I see your mug has 'Mystery Shack' written on it."

Ford smiled. "Yes, my former home, quite near here, has been turned into a tourist attraction by my brother Stanley. You know, come to think of it, if you wanted to contest that ticket, Stanley could take care of it. He's a Justice of the Peace."

"No, no, if I violated the law, I accept the consequences. But I do owe you for the fine."

"Don't worry about that just now," Ford said. "We'll see about it later, if you wish."

Lorena asked, "Another helping, Mr. Markheim?"

"No, thank you, Mrs. Pines. Oh, and my name's Leon."

Ford suddenly realized he'd committed a faux pas. "I'm sorry, absent-minded professor here, and I forgot the introductions—my wife is Lorena, and I'm Stanford or Ford. Shall we take our coffee into the library?"

Lorena saw them to the room, and Markheim said, " Nothing I have is private, Mrs. Pines, so if you'd care to stay-?"

"I'd love to," Lorena said.

They settled into armchairs—after thirty years of roaming in uncomfortable dimensions, Ford had discovered in himself a deep appreciation of nice relaxing armchairs—and Ford said, "Leon, the floor is yours."

"Well—it involves the Indian legends. Forgive me, Native American. Chinook, to be precise." He looked thoughtful and then said, "If you'll indulge me, I think maybe I should tell you something about myself and how I got interested in this."

"Go right ahead," Lorena said.

Unobtrusively, Ford reached to the reading table for his cup and touched a button that started a hidden recorder. "Yes," he said. "Go on, Leon."

* * *

Transcript of Leon Markheim's remarks:

_I'll try not to bore you. All right. I turned sixty last June and retired from my job with the Postal Service. I'd put in thirty years, and I wanted to take some time, finally, to follow up on my interests in history—both of the Chinook people and my family._

_My maternal grandmother was Shawna Joseph. She was a Willapa—do you know Chinook tribes? No? Well, the Willapa are one of five, and my grandmother was a full-blooded Willapa. She married an Anglo, as they say, Henry R. Joseph, and he was my grandfather. They lived in Washington State, up near Tulalip Bay on Puget Sound. When I was little, I'd come and spend a few weeks with them every year. My grandmother told me a lot of the old tales._

_I grew up mostly down in San Diego. My dad was with the U.S. Navy and was away a lot of the time—well, never mind that. Anyway, I grew up, I went to school and junior college, and then I got a job with the Postal Service. For most of my career, I worked in Sacramento. I married at twenty-three, but my wife, Evelyn, and I were never able to have children. And, um, well, she passed away when we were both forty. Since them I suppose I've been pretty lonely. Anyway, about that time I took up a hobby._

_Being that close to Oregon and Washington State, I started to research my grandmother's people in my spare time. Not proper academic research. I didn't have the training for that. But I read, and when I could, I interviewed old people who remembered, and so on._

_One of the stories that stuck in my mind was the Lovers' Leap tale. My grandmother told it to me many times. She said it was real—it had happened, it wasn't just myth. The white man, Chicha-ko, had come in a ship or boat that the sea people burned. The Chinook girl, Tachimo, fell in love with him. They ran away together, but something threatened them—a big bear or something monstrous—and also her father was furious because everyone said Chicha-ko was insane. Anyway, the two of them were chased down and in desperation leaped from a cliff, trying to land in water far below, but the fall killed them._

_My grandmother said she was descended from the Chief's family. And when she died, she left me a little box in her will. I still have it. Here it is. And she said that what's inside was found with the body of Chicha-ko._

_Until recently, I had no idea where the two lovers might have died. Now, though—well, I'm starting to think it might have been here, in Gravity Falls, or nearby. And if the story is true, there may be a treasure still hidden in the cave where Tachimo and Chicha-ko took refuge before they were chased to their deaths. Go ahead, open the box._

* * *

Ford did. It was very small, not even half the size of a deck of playing cards. It was made of some hard, dense reddish wood, and looked very old. Ford fumbled with it and finally discovered that it opened like a drawer—a tight fit—but the bottom compartment finally slid out of the shell. It was hollow.

And inside it lay two gleaming, perfect pearls.


	15. All Up in the Air

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_15: All Up in the Air_

Instead of taking their run, Dipper and Wendy set out before dawn on Sunday morning. They reached a spot where Wendy could park the Green Machine safely off the highway, donned backpacks, and set off carrying the equipment they needed.

Wendy had parked the Dart on a broad grassy expanse, but after a hundred steps they were under the eaves of the forest. As they walked through the misty, dew-dripping woods, Wendy explained what she needed to do to Dipper's car. She finished, ". . . so the tiny leak will get worse, and cylinder 7 will keep misfiring and that will get worse, and first thing you know, you'll need a new engine. This is definitely the better call."

"Let's do it," Dipper said. "When?"

"I talked to Steve at the garage," Wendy said. "He can have a new head gasket for you by Wednesday. We can buy it from him it at ten per cent over his cost, which means about two seventy-five to three hundred. He says we can use a bay if in exchange we clean up the shop some. That's like two hours of work, so way worth it. What do you say?"

"Let's do it," Dipper told her. "When?"

"Well—shouldn't let it slide, so soon as we can. If we can talk Soos into letting us leave work at four instead of six—"

Dipper couldn't help laughing. "We could talk Soos into anything!"

She chuckled, too. "Yeah, but I don't want to take advantage, you know. Anyways, on Wednesday, we could get to the garage before four-thirty, work on the car for like two hours, take a very quick dinner break, come back and do two more. Then on Thursday, same deal, and we ought to be finished with the car by six-thirty. Then clean up the shop for two more hours, out of there by nine. How's it sound?"

"Sounds good to me. If you'll show me what I can do to help, I'll do all I can. I guess there's some of the mechanic work you need to do alone?"

"Yeah, some. A lot, actually."

"Why don't I start the cleaning while you work on those parts? We'll finish earlier."

"Man with the plan! So be it," Wendy said. "Whoa! The woods just quit here, don't they?"

It was almost as though they had walked out of an enormous sylvan building—one minute they were dodging thickly-growing pines, the next they stepped down from thickly-rooted soil onto a sort of bare rocky shelf slanting down to the stream that drained from Lake Gravity Falls, followed the curving bluffs for a couple of miles, and then looped and curled around to meander first north, then back east and out through the split bluffs. All the creeks and smaller streams in the Valley drained into it, so by the time it left Roadkill County, it was a deep and fast river.

At the point where they emerged, the river was in front of them—running over a heavily pebbled basalt bed there, and wide but not terribly deep or rapid. They saw no white water, anyway. On the far side, a similar sloping shelf of bare stone led from the foot of the bluffs down and underneath the river.

As the two got close to the water, something off to their right that Dipper had not noticed suddenly spread great wings and took off, heading toward the lake.

Dipper followed it with his gaze and said, "For a second I thought that was a pterodactyl!"

"Great blue heron," Wendy said. "Must be lots of fish in there. This is hard to get to, or we'd probably have like a hundred fly fishers for company. Smells good, doesn't it?"

Dipper inhaled the fresh cool scent of water and growing things. "Yeah. River's bigger than I thought it would be here."

"So what do you think?" Wendy asked. "Cross or stay here?"

"Pretty wide," Dipper said. "Looks like in the middle it might be deep enough so we'd have to swim, too."

"Yeah, not really worth it with the electronics we're toting. We could drive over Pinch Bridge and then double back, but there's no roads over there, and it's a long hike back that way. We close enough to use the drone from here?"

"Oh, yeah, I think so," Dipper said. "Want to have some breakfast and wait for the sun to get higher?"

"Like I said, man and plan."

It wasn't a bad place for a picnic breakfast—the rock was hard and still night-cool, to be sure, but they folded a couple of sleeping bags as pads. They had packed for portability: hard-boiled eggs, string cheese, a big homemade bran muffin with raisins and nuts to split between them, and a generous thermos of coffee with a little milk. This was still so hot that they ate the eggs and cheese before starting to drink it.

The meal didn't require a campfire, was tasty, and left almost no trash—just the plastic bag that had kept the muffin moist and the eggshells, which fit nicely in the empty bag. Aside from that, they only had to rinse their stainless-steel camp mugs. By the time they finished, the sun had gilded the tops of the bluffs across the river. Overhead, the sky showed not a trace of cloud. Good day for exploring.

"OK," Dipper said. "Last time from up on the hill we saw . . . I'm disoriented. Where are the crevices?"

"One's right across, dude," Wendy said indulgently. "It'll be clearer when the sun's higher. OK, look off to the right, 'bout a third of the way up the bluff or a little more. There, see the darker shadow? That's the underside of the ledge. Right down there's where it ends."

"So there are, what, three, no, four crevices to inspect. Yeah, I see. OK, I'm going to check out the drone and make sure it's at full power."

"How much flying time we got?" Wendy asked.

"McGucket said with his new batteries, we can keep it airborne with active video and sensors for at least six hours, but if it's more than a mile away, to recall it with at least a forty-five-minute cushion."

"That ought to work."

They waited nearly another hour. By then the sun, rising off to their left, had climbed high enough for the bluffs to glow in the early light. Dipper's backpack held no camping equipment—that was all back in the car—but Fiddleford's drone, an ultra-thin McGucket Labs laptop connected to it, and plenty of spare parts. "When you first start out a-flyin' these flapdoodles," Fiddleford had warned, "you're gonna crack up sure. Good thing is, with a little bit of practice, you can near about build one yourself in about an hour, and you can fix up a busted 'un in less time. But be sure not to catch it up in a tall tree or lose it in the lake. Do that, and it's good night, Nellie."

So Dipper went through the preflight checklist as if he were at the controls of a real airplane. The pentacopter was compact—the rotors were on vanes that pulled out and locked to give it stability—and the sensor/camera array mounted on it was astonishingly lightweight, but with luck it could take them in for a closer look than they could get any other way except for a long hike and a dangerous rappel down the steep drop of the bluffs.

When he'd made sure that all the rotors worked, the camera and sensors were operating, and the sun was high enough to give them enough light, Dipper said, "OK, let's launch. You want to take the controls?"

"Me?" Wendy asked. "You don't want to fly it?"

Dipper smiled. "I'd love to_ play_ with it—but you've got better mechanical skills and you're definitely a better driver."

"Except with tanks," Wendy said. "I took out half the store awnings!"

"Only because Mabel fell through the hatch and landed on your head," Dipper pointed out. "Here you go. Let me walk you through the controls. This is the joystick."

"I'm not gonna make the obvious joke about letting me play with your—"

"AND this controls attitude—the tilt of the drone, so you can move it this way to scan or to find a target. This one actually moves the camera lens. It's got a forty-five degree leeway. Right now it's at ninety—straight up and down—but once its near the bluffs you can angle it so we can zoom in for closer looks. This is the zoom control. Now, this light will show green if there's a fifty-foot clearance. If you get closer than that, it turns orange. If you're within twenty feet of any obstacle—"

"Like the cliff."

"—yeah, like the cliff or a tree or whatever, it turns red. Ten feet and it blinks and beeps. Five feet and the automatic buffer moves it back and you can't override that. Now, here's the power. First start the TV. Let me check the monitor—yep, it's on. Start the rotors and bring them to ten per cent power. Beautiful. I'm stepping back from it, so take off any time you want."

"Come and hold the laptop so I can see the screen, OK? What are the readouts down at the bottom?"

"Altitude, distance from base—that's us—direction and GPS coordinates, battery life. Everything looks good, so take off!"

"Whoa!" Wendy said as with a whine the drone shot straight up for a hundred feet. She adjusted, tilting her head to stare up as the little craft stabilized. "Got more pep than I thought it would."

"McGucket over-engineers," Dipper said. "Look, here we are as seen from way up there."

"Cute. We're like little ants."

"Keep your eye on the altitude indicator there down on the left of the controls. Take it up to twelve hundred feet. That should be safe enough to clear the bluffs. OK, your altitude read-out matches the one on screen, so we're synced. And—go. Take it right across."

The screen showed the passing scene beneath the drone—the broad river, then the sloping stone ledge up to the foot of the bluffs. And then the screen turned a deep green as the drone, now just a tiny dot to the pilots on the ground, hovered above the crest of the bluff straight across from them, looking down on a thick forest.

"Real old trees," Wendy said. "Man, if there was a way to get in and out of there, Dad could make a fortune in lumber!"

But lumber surveying wasn't what they were after. In a quarter of an hour, Wendy gained confidence piloting the drone, and then she pulled it back to about fifty feet off the cliff face. She dropped it down and to the side and then flew it back up until the first crevice came into sharp focus. From the look of it, it was indeed the track of a long-dried-up waterfall.

The drone looked into it, but the only thing to be seen was a sort of half-pipe of water-smoothed, weathered stone. She moved the drone to the left and found the next one, which might have been damage left from some long-ago earthquake. This was narrower and more jagged. Dipper showed her how to turn on the small but powerful spotlight, and they scouted this crack, too—at places it had been widened by dinner-plate-sized spalls, spots where frost and weathering had chipped away for eons.

The next one was very close to the place where the ledge ended—they'd had to sidetrack along the river for more than a hundred yards to get opposite it, and at that point the river was curving away.

This one was a little wider than the other clefts and a little deeper than the first one. Wendy brought the drone down slowly, and Dipper studied the screen. She'd passed the place where the ledge dropped off and had lowered the drone another hundred feet when Dipper said, "Hold it right there! I see something."

He fiddled with the screen controls. "Close to about twenty feet," he said. "Watch your distance, though."

Wendy concentrated and gradually brought the drone closer in. The warning light flickered from orange to red and back again, and she held position there, compensating for a fitful updraft.

"Let me zoom the lens in," Dipper said. "I think I see something. Maybe just a weathered rock—no. No, I was right. Don't move the controls. I'm recording this."

Wendy didn't dare take her eyes away from the hovering drone. "Dude, what is it?"

"OK, pull it back over and we'll bring it in for a landing."

"You do that. I want to look at the footage."

Dipper took the controls from Wendy and brought the drone overhead—more or less—and then in for a soft landing. Well, soft-ish. Nothing broke.

Wendy was holding the tablet. "Oh, man," she said. "I didn't expect this. You think this could be-?"

"Don't know," Dipper said. "Maybe not. But maybe we found one of them."

Wedged in the crevice, about a hundred feet below the point where the lovers might—or might not—have made their desperate last leap, seeming to stare at them with the infinite patience of the dead, was what certainly looked like a human skull.


	16. Stirrings

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_16: Stirrings_

Ford said, "Mason's not answering his computer phone. I'll send him a text and ask him to call as soon as possible."

"Computer phone?" asked Mr. Markheim, looking baffled.

"Yes—ah, wrong terminology. I meant cellular telephone," Ford said. "I'm afraid that sometimes my command of technical terms is faulty." He laboriously tapped the letters on his screen, often back-spacing to correct a type.

Markheim watched him with evident fascination. "I just realized. You're a polydactyl," he said.

"Yes, I know," Ford murmured. "My twin Stanley has the normal complement of ten fingers, but I was blessed with two extra."

Markheim's face was red. "I didn't mean to—"

"None taken," Stanford said. "However, my condition does make typing on these tiny screens vexing, so let me just finish this—"

"Here," Markheim said, holding out a ballpoint pen.

"No, this must be typed in, letter by letter—"

"It's a stylus," Markheim told him. "Handy gadget for those of us with fat fingers."

Ford took it. "Oh. I see—the black tip is small enough to—why, this is brilliant! Did you invent this?"

"Uh, no," Markheim said. "I got it when I went in to renew my car insurance. It's a promotional item from the insurance company."

"I see," Ford said, reading the company name and logo on the side of the barrel. "Well, I shall certainly see if I can find one—"

"You can buy them on Amazone," Markheim said.

Smiling broadly, Ford finished his text and tapped SEND. "How remarkably efficient!" He called, "Oh, Lorena! When you next order something from Amazone, add a dozen, um, telephone styli for me."

Lorena peeked in the door. "What?"

Ford held up the stylus. "Twelve of these!"

"Oh," she said, smiling. "All right."

Mr. Markheim stirred anxiously. "Do you think your nephew and his friend are out looking for the cave?"

"I feel sure they are," Ford said.

"Did you tell them there might be danger?"

"I did. I asked them to call me before they went any further. The problem is that reception isn't very good once one is away from town. However, Mason is sensible and Miss Corduroy is extremely resourceful. I'm confident they'll be all right."

Markheim nodded, but he didn't look very reassured.

* * *

Wendy and Dipper had driven further into the Valley, crossed Pinch Bridge, doubled back on a rutted logging trail, parked and gone half a mile through the woods to the shelf of rock and scree at the foot of the bluffs, and they were working their way back. They now were between the river and the bluffs, and though they didn't have to chop their way through a forest, the going wasn't all that easy. Over the eons, a lot of loose rock had fallen down, and in places it grew thick with tangles of pyracantha.

Wendy identified it. "Don't push through any," she warned. "It's called firethorn, and it's bad news. Invasive plant, used for barriers—hedges nobody can shove their way through 'cause the thorns will flat rip you to pieces. Birds probably dropped seeds here. Lucky that they're just scattered, but don't get caught up on one."

So they gave the thorny shoots a wide berth and kept to a winding course. At one point the river came so close to the vertical cliffs that they had to take off boots and socks and wade through cold water that came halfway to their knees. When they got back to relatively level rock, they sat and rested and let the sun-warmed rock dry their feet. Dipper said, "We didn't come this far last time."

"No," Wendy agreed. But that ledge we saw—right up above us is the same one, or a continuation of it. Maybe that's the one we need. I've been looking for some place where Fawn and Pacallo could've climbed up to the ledge or to a cave, but I haven't seen anyplace I'd try."

"We might be in the wrong part of the Valley," Dipper said. "Or maybe it didn't even take place here."

"That sure looked like a skull, though," Wendy said. "If somebody jumped off the ledge, trying to hit the river but misjudging it, they could've wound up stuck in that old waterfall cut."

"Or maybe some explorer was trying to chimney down from the top and got stuck," Dipper said. "Or maybe the Thunderbird that the legends mention might have had a nest there and picked up a human snack and tucked it away in the crevice."

"I thought Thunderbirds were Southwestern," Wendy said.

"They are, but the Chinook had a legend about a demon bird that preyed on people. I always wondered if it was a pterodactyl. That time when Mabel and I had to chase after a Pteranodon that stole Waddles—"

"This the time that Stan rode on its neck and punched it in the face?"

"Yeah. That wasn't one of Stan's stories, either, but really happened. I saw it. Anyway, we found the thing's nest, and there were human bones in it. I'm not sure the Pteranodon ate the people, though—there was some horrible mining disaster that killed a lot of the miners, and maybe the Pteranodon just found the bones and used them in her nest. They can eat humans, though. One swallowed McGucket."

"Mabel told me that, but I thought she was just making up stories."

"No, one swallowed Fiddleford whole."

"How'd he get out?"

"He ate it."

"What!"

"This was back when he was crazy, remember. He told me he had musical spoons with him, and he used them to eat his way out of the thing's stomach. That killed it. I think he was able to do it because it was a newly-hatched baby."

"Dude, that's sick."

"Don't tell Mabel. For all she knows, the Pteranodon barfed him up. You know how she is about animals."

"Lips are zipped, Dipper. Come on, let's get our boots on and see what we can see."

They kept their gazes on the ledge, and when it played out abruptly, Wendy said, "There's the cleft in the bluff, see it? Skull's up there somewheres."

They got to the spot where once the waterfall must have thundered down into the river and discovered that a wide, nearly circular pool still existed there, a basin that the waterfall must have dug out. It wasn't full, but it still held water. "Must be a nice swimming hole when the Falls are coming in at full flow," Wendy said. "Not so good now."

That was true. Because the river was low, the basin was less than half full, and the water cupped in the basin looked green with algae. Mosquitoes swarmed around it, too—luckily they had applied repellent. The two were able to edge around the margin of the pool until they could look up the half-tube of the old channel.

Once, when the waterfall had been running, it probably was open all the way top to bottom. Now, though, rockfalls and debris clogged it. Though the skull, and maybe the rest of the skeleton, must still be up there, maybe a hundred and fifty feet or higher, they couldn't see it because of boulders that had jammed into the space.

"Don't see any way of climbing up," Wendy said. "Want to try the drone again?"

"Let's survey the ledge," Dipper said. "If the two did hide in a cave, it might have opened out onto the ledge. Maybe it's like the channel—rocks might have blocked it."

They broke out the drone again and sent it up and then cruised it along so it gave them a view of the narrow ledge.

Enough soil had accumulated on it for tough, stringy grasses and weeds to grow, along with a pine sapling every so often. They saw one place where a sizeable pine tree had toppled—held by a tangle of roots, the dead trunk dangled down, bare of bark and bleached white by decades, if not centuries, of sun.

Then, two or three hundred feet downstream from them, Dipper said, "Is that a cave?"

Wendy hovered the drone and adjusted the lens. "Might be. Tight squeeze if it is!"

What Dipper was staring at was a horizontal arch that might be five or six feet wide, but in the center was only about eighteen inches wide. "Might be a glacial cave," he said. "Or even a lava tube, but I don't think that's likely. Or maybe It's just a weathered-out hollow, just a few feet deep."

"If we could get up there, we'd be able to tell."

"Don't see how. The only way might be to get up to the rim of the cliffs and then rappel down, but that's a long drop, maybe six hundred feet. Here we'd have to climb a vertical face. I guess it could be done by an experienced rock climber, but I wouldn't want to try it."

"Want me to fly the drone right up to the opening?"

"The buffer will probably stop you, but get it as close as you can."

Wendy angled the drone in and finally hovered it—the red warning light was blinking fast—and turned on the light.

"I'm recording this," Dipper said. "It's pretty deep, maybe even opens out into a cavern, but I can't see much. We'll study the footage later."

"What now?" Wendy asked after they had landed and packed the drone.

"No sense going further upstream," Dipper said. "Let's head back to the car and find a good camping spot. Maybe we can take the images back to Grunkle Ford and get his read. Heck, if he wanted he could probably bring in a helicopter to lower some explorers to the ledge."

"And steal our thunder?" Wendy asked. "No way. But let's first see if it looks like we even got anything."

So—another three hours' hiking, then back through the woods to the car, and then Wendy drove them to a camp site with a small whitewater stream flowing nearby—it joined the river a mile or so further down—and they pitched their tent, built their campfire, had a late lunch, and rested.

Then Dipper's phone beeped. He took it out and read Ford's message:

* * *

_Mason, that area may be dangerous. Take no chances and call me at your earliest opportunity. I have more information._

* * *

Unfortunately, phone reception was very minimal, and he couldn't make the call. Though the text had come through, he had no bars on his phone, nor did Wendy. "Might get some reception if we climbed up a hill," Wendy said. "Want to go find one?"

"Let's rest for a while first," Dipper said. "I'm sure it will keep."

* * *

Way down in Piedmont, Billy Sheaffer was on a swing in a park where the family had come for a picnic. His sister Mira was pushing him, and he swooped up until sky was between his toes, then swung back until he was looking at the worn area where kids' feet had scuffed away the grass, and then the forward arc made him catch his breath again—

"Higher?" Mira asked.

"Yeah!"

She gave him another hard push, and he picked up speed and height. Now he felt as though he were almost upside-down at the peak of the swing. He gasped as gravity pulled him back—

Everything went dark.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his stomach and his dad was saying, "Billy! Are you all right?"

He pushed himself and rolled over, gasping for breath. "What happened?"

"You somehow fell out of the swing," Mom said. "Lie still a moment. Does anything feel broken?"

"My eye—" he put his hand to his face and clapped it over an empty socket.

"Got jarred loose," Dad said. "I've got it. It's not hurt, just needs cleaning."

Mina said, "Let's get him home."

"Wait a minute," Mom insisted, wiping his face. Only then did he realize his nose was bleeding. "Move your arms and legs. Carefully. OK? Let me know if this hurts." She gently pressed on his ribs. Nothing hurt, aside from his face. He had a lump on his forehead, and his nose ached.

But he got up and wasn't dizzy, and with his hand still clamped against his eye socket, he made it to the car. They lived just a little way from the park. As Dad drove home, Billy said, "I'm sorry I messed up the picnic."

"It's OK," Mom said. "Are you hurting anywhere now?"

"No. Nosebleed's stopped. I don't know how I fell out."

"I didn't even push him that time," Mira said. "He just let go of the chains and hit the grass."

"I want you to rest, but don't go to sleep," Mom warned. "Maybe we should take you to the emergency room."

"I don't think so," Billy said. "I don't feel all that bad."

Only later, when his prosthetic eye had been disinfected and cleaned and he'd put it back in, only when he was lying on the sofa and Mom had given him a cold pack for the lump on his forehead, only when he thought back to that strange moment when the world had gone dark—

"Oh, gosh," he said to himself. "It's after Dipper!"

* * *

Up on the ledge, something huge and unnatural stirred. Birds ceased their singing and took to the air. Small rocks fell and either bounded off the stone far below or plunked into the edge of the river.

Something sniffed the air. And waited, alert, not growling, not really moving. It sent its mind questing, though. Hunting.

However, it did not care for sunlight. When nothing living moved, it settled down again, warily, beneath a shelf of rock.

And it waited for darkness and its nightly ritual.

* * *


	17. Not Time to Panic

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_17: Not Time to Panic_

"He's sleeping," Lorena reported to Stanford. "Poor man, he was so worried about being arrested and stuck in a cell he got hardly any sleep in the jail."

"Not arrested, only detained, technically. However, I'm not surprised," Ford said. He waited as his cell phone gave him the "We're sorry. The number you have called is not in service" message and then through thirty seconds of silence before someone on the other end answered.

"Telephone repair," the man said.

Carefully and distinctly, Ford said, "Salmon unguent. Potato median throne deep doctor."

He heard a brief electronic warble, and then the man on the other end said, "Yes, sir. Scrambler enabled. One moment."

And exactly one moment—fun fact, a moment is ninety seconds—later, a woman's voice said, "Duty officer, Deputy Director's office."

"Hazard," Stanford said. "This is Director Pines. I want an expedited B and A report, short form, ASAP. Subject is—" he flipped open Markheim's wallet, which Lorena had quietly borrowed, and read from the driver's license: "California DL stroke 1098567231. Expiration date 06/30/2019. Last name Markheim—" he spelled it—"first name Leon. Address 2618 X street, Sacramento, California, 95822. DOB 06/18/1957. Hair black—iron gray, really—eyes brown, height five foot eight, weight one hundred seventy. I have reason to believe his birthplace was San Diego and that his father was in the U.S. Navy. He may have Native American ancestry on his mother's side."

Hazard, with flat sarcasm, asked, "Is there anything else you need to know?"

She always made Stanford chuckle. "I know it sounds as if I have a lot of information already, but for what it's worth, this documentation could be false. Fax me a report as soon as you can. I mainly want to know if he really is who he says he is. Oh, and I've forwarded three fingerprints to the DD's office."

"I wondered what those were. You fingerprinted the man?"

"I served him orange juice and dusted the glass," Stanford said. "Thank you, Agent Hazard."

"I'll get on this right now. Should have a prelim to you within two hours."

"That's fine. How did you pull desk duty?"

"Lost a bet to Powers."

"Hard man to gamble with. Perfect poker face."

"Now you tell me. All right, the inquiry is in progress. Anything more, sir?"

"That's all, thanks."

Ford hung up and handed the wallet back to Lorena. "Can you slip this back into his jacket without him knowing?"

"Since I took his jacket for steaming, I think so," she said. "You know, dear, you look quite different when you get into the James Bond mode. Very grim around the mouth."

"Mm, well, that's because I'm rather worried. I still haven't heard from Mason. Markheim might have thought his grandmother's fable about a monster bear was a fairy tale, but—this is Gravity Falls. It didn't sound at all like the Multibear, but who knows what might be out there? I wish I had a way of tracking Mason and Wendy."

Lorena said, "Well, I'll take care of this." But she paused in the doorway. "Dear, why don't you call Fiddleford? He may have a tracer on the drone they borrowed."

Ford jumped up. He took two steps to her and pulled her close and kissed her. "I knew there was a good reason I married you!" he said softly. "You keep me from being too dumb for my own good."

"Nonsense," she said, giving him another peck. "You're a genius. You just get too narrowly focused sometimes. You call Fiddleford, and I'll see that Mr. Markheim doesn't miss his wallet."

Ford watched her go, admiring her trim figure for a moment, and then he speed-dialed McGucket.

"Howdy, Ford," McGucket's voice came back. "It's eleven on a Sunday. What do you need, friend?"

Ford asked if McGucket could locate the drone.

"Easy peasey," Fiddleford said. "Hang on, let me walk over to my lab." Since the McGuckets lived in what was once the Northwest mansion, it was close to a four-minute stroll from the living room to the remodeled commercial-grade big kitchen. Then McGucket said, "I'm a-gonna put you on speaker here. Jist a minute. There. You hear me?"

"I hear you," Ford said.

"All righty. Got the computermajig fired up . . . let's see . . . you want GPS coordinates or jist a place-name location?"

"GPS is preferable," Ford said, standing at an enormous map of the Valley on his office wall.

Fiddleford read out latitude and longitude. Ford approximated the location.

"Hang on," Fiddleford said. "They's a-movin'. Reckon they must be in a vehicle. They a road in that location?"

"A disused one. The West Valley Post road. It was in operation in the late nineteenth century when there was a little logging community back in there. It must be rough."

"Yeah, ain't goin' but twenty miles an hour. But that's where they are."

"Can you monitor and then tell me where they stop?"

"Well—we was gonna go have lunch with Tate and his wife, but yeah, for a friend I'll do it."

"Thanks. I'll make it up to you."

"You don't have to."

After he hung up, Ford stood looking at the map. There was the lake, and there was the asphalt road that led over Pinch Bridge—named for one of the Valley's pioneers—and forking off not far west of the bridge the old post road. Wooded, hilly country, no settlements, very weak telephone coverage.

He shook his head, sighed, and settled down at his desk to do the hard part of an investigation.

Waiting.

* * *

Wendy stopped the car. "Good place to pitch the tent," she said. "I wonder if those are hot springs down in there."

"Could be," Dipper said. "We're south of the geyser field, aren't we?"

The Gravity Falls geyser field wouldn't be a threat to Yellowstone. None of the geysers were spectacular—well, there were a few, but they were far north of where they were, and in a cavern besides. One of them had once blasted Mabel, Soos, Grunkle Stan, and Dipper—along with Waddles—right through the roof of an abandoned church. The surface geysers, though, were on just a few acres and none of them sent up much more than occasional spurts of steam.

As for hot springs—well, another of their favorite camp sites had a beautiful little natural hot tub that he and Wendy had enjoyed from time to time.

However, they hiked down to the five pools and found they were just ordinary cold-water springs, feeding a creek that linked them all and that meandered eastward through the woods. Still, having fresh water close at hand was a plus. They pitched the tent, gathered some deadfall kindling and chopped some firewood, and then sacked out for a couple of hours—they had been up early and had already hiked a long way. So they lay atop their sleeping bags—too hot to get inside them—and intermittently talked and communicated telepathically.

They had no solid evidence, but agreed on some likely conjectures.

First, the arched opening off the ledge was very likely at least a small cave and perhaps a glacial tunnel or cavern. Ten thousand years before, due to a quirk in air circulation, the Valley had been glacier free, but the northern rim of the bluffs had been buried under maybe a hundred feet of ice. As it vanished, the water from it seeped into the bedrock and slowly ate away at more permeable layers. The big cavern behind the Falls was an example of a spectacular glacier cave. This might be a smaller one.

Or it could be a lava tube. Or a karst feature, unlikely though that was. Wendy's opinion was that the cave had been the source of yet another waterfall. "Glacier melted, all those little waterfalls got started, this one could've burst out and run for thousands of years until the source dried up."

They studied the computer display until their eyes got tired, but unfortunately because of the angles involved they just couldn't see far enough into the opening to be sure. "If we could climb up there, it would be easy to check," Dipper complained.

Second, they concluded that climbing was not much of an option. Neither of them had rock-climbing experience or know-how. They had no equipment. "We could come in from the rim," Wendy said, "but it's a long drop, and I'd hate to try that."

As they studied the footage from the drone, Dipper said, "I'll bet this is recent. I mean, last hundred years or so recent." He pointed at a big pile of rubble at the foot of the bluffs. "Looks like a huge chunk of the cliff face collapsed here, see? If that hadn't happened, there's this place where a small ridge butts right up to the cliff. If Pale Fawn and Pacallo did hide in the cave, that would have been a place where people without special equipment could have reached the ledge."

"Long way from there to the cave, though," Wendy said. "Like a couple miles. Edging along that far on a ledge that in places was only a couple feet wide—chancy, man."

"But they were in love and they were hiding from her father," Dipper said.

"Yeah. I guess you and me could do that if we absolutely had to."

"Now we can't, though, because the rockfall took out about twenty yards of the ledge. Look, see how the rock here's so much lighter in color? That's where the collapse was."

"Dip, to tell the truth, I'm not sure any treasure would be worth the hassle of trying to find it."

"I don't think we'd even keep the gold and stuff," Dipper said. "Donate it to the Shack museum or something. But just to satisfy my curiosity—and find out of there's any truth to the legends—ah, forget it."

"No, no," she said, holding his hand. "I'm with you, man. We might as well push this through until we hit a wall."

—_Thanks, Wen. We'll give it tomorrow, OK? Then if we can't find any way—we'll call it a closed case. Thanks for doing this with me._

_My pleasure._

After a few minutes of lying there beside him, she sent him a small correction: _Now, THIS—this is my pleasure!_

* * *

Markheim was still sound asleep in the afternoon when Agent Hazard called Ford. Her greeting was professional, not warm: "Scrambler's engaged. I could have called you on the hot line, but—"

"—but you knew this is an unofficial inquiry," Ford finished. "Thank you, Agent Hazard. Any news?"

"Full report's coming in on the secure fax machine. Are you receiving?"

Just as she asked that, the machine in his office began to hum and quietly shoot out fax pages. "Getting it now," he said. "Give me the meat."

"Bottom line: Markheim is who he says he is. Father Jonathan Markheim was a professional Navy man, entered the service in 1942 as an ensign, nineteen then. Served aboard three ships, two destroyer escorts and an aircraft carrier. Won a medal in 1945 for his role in saving lives after a kamikaze attack. Came out of the War as a lieutenant commander. More sea duty before and during the Korean War. Met Miss Fawn Joseph in 1954 in Seattle, Washington, where she was in college. They married a year later. Leon was their only child, born in '57, San Diego. By then Jonathan was a rear admiral in charge of shore operations. He retired in '62 on full pension but acted as a consultant for another eight years. He died in '70, lung cancer. His wife died in '87, heart attack. They're buried together in the Holly Hills Cemetery, near San Diego."

"So much for his parents. Markheim?"

"Two years of college, associate degree in mathematics. Worked retail for a few years, clothing store clerk. Married Evelyn Saunders in 1980, no children. She died in 1997 when a truck crashed into a bus she was riding in. Let's see . . . Markheim wasn't making much at retail, so he applied and got a job with the USPS in 1987. Worked his way up to a supervisor's position. He and his wife weren't poor, weren't rich, comfortably middle-class. Need more of his work background? He got excellent performance reviews."

"No, I'll get all the rest from the report," Ford said. "Markheim and his interest in Native American folklore?"

"That started not long after he lost his wife. As far as ethnography goes, he's mostly self-educated. I've sent you a list of all the books on the subject he's bought from Amazone over the years. About three dozen of them, very few specializing in Chinook legends, but there are only a few to begin with. I've confirmed that his maternal grandmother, Shawna Chacolee, was a member of the Willapa tribe. Her own grandmother lived to be ninety-eight, and so the possibility of her having heard tales of the past is considerable. More on her in the report."

"Excellent work," Ford said, gathering up the fifteen or sixteen pages of the faxed report. The top of each page warned: CONFIDENTIAL AND SECRET, a fairly low level of classification. "Thank you, Agent Hazard."

"You're welcome. Gave me something to do on a slow Sunday. No UFOs, skunk apes, ghosts, or lake monster reports coming in. Is that all?"

"Yes. Carry on."

"Yes, Director. Hazard out."

Ford hung up and mildly cursed himself for being such a suspicious bastard. The former Director, his old college teacher—known almost exclusively as the Professor—had warned him about that: "Occupational hazard. Though we're not engaged in espionage, handling paranormal mysteries tends to make one somewhat paranoid. Don't let the job get to you, my boy."

Well, OK. Ford walked back to the map. According to McGucket, who had called him a little over an hour earlier, Mason and Wendy had stopped in an area of meadows and parkland, no doubt camping. He stood looking at the spot and wondering whether to go out there personally—it looked as if it might take a couple of hours, unless he requisitioned a helicopter and made the whole affair look even more questionable to Agency employees.

He decided he could wait. When Markheim woke up, rested and less edgy, they'd talk at more length. Now that Ford knew he could trust the man, perhaps together they could identify the shadowy threat that Markheim had referred to.

No need to disturb his nephew and Wendy just yet.

He decided it wasn't time to panic.

* * *


	18. Fears

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_18: Fears_

_Afternoon._

The sun, reddening, slipped down toward the western bluffs. Shadows stretched long in the Valley. The lowering sun painted the split bluffs a ruddy orange. Fish stirred in the lake as the shadows of looming trees stretched out, cooling the surface. A mature stonefly flitted too low, and a trout erupted from the water, snapped it up, and submerged. Dragonflies hummed: blue dashers zipped past like helicopters on the way to an emergency. Larger flame skimmers, with bodies and wings the red color of rust, droned at a higher altitude. A colorful drake wood duck, green and white and brown and gray, glided along with his mate, a brown female, and the two quacked companionably.

The sun lit up the water tower, and the graffiti showed through layers of fresher paint. If you looked closely, you could make out something that at first looked like a cloud, and then like a muffin. Or maybe a giant explosion, whatever. Strange that it seemed more persistent than the paint that had hidden it.

At the Shack the afternoon sun lit up the triangular attic window. It projected a yellow and orange-red image on the floor, though the two beds broke it up. Still, it was almost a representation of Bill Cipher.

Mabel and Teek got back from spending the day together, laughing, and Tripper reacted as he always did, as if Mabel had been gone for weeks and he was so happy to see her that he might wag his tail off. She petted him, and then she and Teek went and tossed the ball for him.

She went in to get a doggy treat and for some reason that reminded her, so she detoured to her room and picked up her phone, which she'd taken off the charger to put in her purse before the date, but then she'd run out and left the phone on the bed, not in her purse—"Love makes you absent-minded," she said.

Out in the yard, Tripper relished the treat, and idly, Mabel checked her missed calls.

Seven of them.

All from one number: Billy Sheaffer.

And one message, from Billy: "Mabel, if you get this, please call me quick."

It was two hours old.

She thumbed the reply icon and waited for the ring.

* * *

"I remember the chant," Markheim said to Ford. They had taken the big topographic map from the wall and had spread it out on the dining room table. "My grandmother taught it to me, but she didn't get it from her people. It was one of the ones that William Clark recorded in his journals. It wasn't published—at least I didn't find it in the records—but Clark wrote it on a piece of paper that became a tribal treasure. My grandmother had learned it, in English, from her grandmother. I don't know what ever became of the paper."

"And it's about a monster here in the Valley? The chant, I mean," Ford said.

"I think it might be. Wait a minute. I can't sing, but I have to chant this to get the words right." Markheim stared at the map and without looking up, began a hoarse rhythmic chant:

"Ha, he guards the valley of high falls,

High on the cliffside his home.

His claws are knives that feast on flesh,

His eyes are sparks red in the night,

His charge is lightning forked from dark clouds,

His roar is the thunder.

Ha, he comes in the dark,

He hunts those who step on the sacred ground,

He takes their heads and hearts as trophy,

Many women keen for their dead.

Ha, men call him bear, but he is more than bear,

He is ghost, he is spirit, he is death.

Be warned and do not walk the middle path,

Do not creep into the cave,

Do not light fire there,

Do not sing songs there,

Do not speak there,

Do not dare breathe.

Ha, he comes in the night

And with him comes death."

"That's chilling enough," Ford said. "Is that what chased the lovers?"

"I don't know," Markheim admitted. "The chant was tangled up with the Lovers' Leap tale in my grandmother's mind, though."

Ford checked his phone. Still no text or return call. "We don't have much daylight left," he said. "I have a feeling we should go try to find Mason."

"I don't know what help I can be," Markheim said.

"You've helped enough already," Ford said, smiling.

The shorter man swallowed. "No. I've never been in war, I've never even witnessed a violent act. I guess—I may be a coward. But I'm coming with you if you'll let me."

Ford looked at him, his face taut, his eyes wide behind the big round spectacles. He had clenched his hands so tightly that his knuckles were pale. "I'd be honored," Ford said. "Let's go."

* * *

"Mabel!" Billy said, his voice breaking. "I called and called. Listen. Dipper's in trouble. Cipher told me. You got to help him."

"Slow down," Mabel said, holding the phone a little away from her ear. "I can't understand you. Slower. What's wrong with Dipper?"

"I don't know exactly," Billy said. "But something real big is after him. An animal. Or maybe a ghost, I don't know. Something real old and dangerous."

"OK," Mabel said. "Uh—do you know where he is?"

"Someplace where there's hills with just brush and small trees. I think it's way up in the Valley. Uh. It's past the West shore of the lake. Hills and tall grass. Uh. Little round ponds, all in a line. I'm sorry. But he needs help. See if you can find him, please."

"OK, I'll call Grunkle Stan," Mabel said. "He'll know what to do. Let me call him now, and I'll get back in touch."

"Hurry," Billy pleaded.

"What's up?" Teek asked.

"Billy says he thinks Dip's in danger. Maybe. I think Billy's a little psychic, so I'm gonna call Grunkle Stan to see if he knows the place where Billy thinks Dipper and Wendy are."

"Not Stanford?" Teek asked.

For a second she looked at him blankly. Then she said, "Yeah! Ford explored everywhere! Genius, Teek!" She changed the speed-dial button to Ford's.

"Mabel?" Ford asked. "I can't talk, I'm about to drive—"

"Listen!" Mabel said. "Dipper's in trouble!"

For a second or two, Ford didn't speak. Then he asked, "How did you know?"

"Wait, you knew?" she asked. "I—never mind! Are you going—"

"Going to try to find him," Ford said. "I've got a good idea of where to look."

"Don't leave!" Mabel said. "I'm coming with you!"

"Hurry, then, and wear sturdy shoes!"

"Got sneakers, they'll have to do!" Mabel kissed Teek. "Tell Soos and Grunkle Stan that I've gone with Ford to look for Dipper. Or is that too complicated? No, they'll understand. Except Soos. Love you, gotta run!"

Tripper paced her downhill, across Stan's front lawn, and onto Ford' driveway, where the big dark-blue Lincoln waited, engine running. Mabel saw that someone was in the passenger seat and hopped in the back. She rolled down the window and called, "Tripper! Home! I'll be back soon!"

The disappointed dog gave her a reproachful gaze, but obediently ran back the way they had come.

"Mabel," Ford said, "this is Mr. Markheim, who may be able to help us. He knows some lore and—well, cut it short, we're probably on the track of a monster."

"Hi," Mabel said. "Mabel Pines, Dipper's sister, and monsters don't even make me break a sweat. Floor it, Grunkle Ford! Where are we going?"

"Up into the hills and—"

"West of the lake?" Mabel asked. "A place with grassy hills and just a few trees and some ponds?"

"Erm. Yes," Ford said, heading toward town and the lake road.

Mabel punched Billy's number into her phone. He answered, "What?"

"We're on our way," Mabel said. "Your hunch was right. Thanks."

"Have Dipper call me," Billy said.

"Sure thing. Try to calm down."

She hung up and Ford asked, "Who was that?"

"Billy," Mabel said. "Little kids. They're so excitable. What's this on the seat beside me?"

"It would be better not to open the case," Ford said. "That's a Mark V quantum destabilizer."

"Oh."

That was when Mabel really started to worry.

Ford was bringing in the big gun.

* * *

The sun was only an hour above the cliff edge.

Shadows had stretched long and long. The curve of the bluffs darkened the cave mouth.

A faint crimson light, smaller than the flame of a birthday candle, gleamed in each of the skull's eye sockets. _You do not have to do this._

The dark shape that had begun to form in the cave did not speak. It might not have thought, but it gave off impulses that could be understood.

_Dull anger._

_Grim purpose._

_Fatality._

The skull in the corner gazed out without expression. It is hard for a skull to have an expression anyway. But it, too, projected an emotion—deep regret. Sorrow and regret. Loneliness, sorrow, regret. _Please. You do not have to do this._

If the gathering darkness had a coherent thought, it might have been read as—

_I fulfill my purpose._

Now like a caged tiger it paced, or rather its darkness flowed with the cadence of pacing. Daylight still in the sky outside the cave, but night was coming.

Soon.

Soon it would be dark.

Soon the time would come.

The time for the hunt.


	19. Dream of Death

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16, 2017)

* * *

_19: Dream of Death_

On one overcast afternoon on the stage of London's Globe Theatre, for the first time Richard Burbage, actor, spoke these now-familiar words: "To die, to sleep; / To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause."

So spoke the great Dane.

Now, as Wendy and Dipper settled down and slept . . . what? What was that question from the group? You? What did you say? Repeat, please.

WHAT? No, not _Marmaduke!_ Whatever gave you that idiotic idea—well, yes, Marmaduke may be a Great Dane, but—what?

No, the OTHER kind of pause! Not p-a-w-s, but p-a-u-s-e.

I KNOW dogs can't spell! Look, get that right out of your head, no dogs in it, OK? Who? WHO? Hamlet! Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Shakespeare, you babbling, bumbling, bothersome buffoon! Everybody ELSE clear? Right.

Damn. Here I was, starting off with a nice literary allusion, and Smarty Know-It-All there ruins it. Let me gather my thoughts. Person from Porlock, that one.

Right.

Shakespeare's concept of sleep as symbol for death is well known, and he wasn't the first to use it. The proposition he posed makes it clear that when we sleep and dream, we, as it were, step into another life, one related to but separate from everyday reality. The question then is, is the Afterlife like a dream? A new reality with its own rules, its own mysteries, its own . . . well, life. And for each person, will it be dream . . . or nightmare?

* * *

In the Mindscape, a weakened Bill Cipher frantically tried to invade Dipper's consciousness. He made no more progress than a fly flinging itself against a June windowpane. The goal was bright, close, and tempting, but each time he bounced right off.

In other words, there was no way to get through to Dipper. And Red was out of the question—far too grounded, too fearless, too Corduroy to be receptive.

Billy Sheaffer he could reach, but—well—Billy was a kid, and I said A not THE for the benefit of that connotation-deaf person there.

Besides, Billy was, in some sense, Bill. And Bill's chances for redemption were already small enough to fit inside a flea's navel.

He had to be careful. He was playing a game without rules, and if he broke one, game over. He already worried that he might have gone too far in invading Billy's dreams once. He didn't dare chance it again.

Still, Bill knew, as no one else did, that something straight out of nightmare, if not the Nightmare Realm, was a-prowl.

"I am not going to beg, but come on! How about a little help?" Cipher said aloud, or in the Mindscape version of speech. "I could use some help here! Axolotl?" He gritted his eyelids. "Oracle? Anybody? Come on!"

Someone once said that every prayer is answered, but sometimes the answer is "no."

Feeling—and believe it, this was one of the hardest things Cipher ever did, experiencing what could be called human emotions raw and electric—feeling frustration and fear, not for himself but for his—his—for his—

He couldn't finish the thought.

The word, Bill, is "friend."

Being afraid, not for himself, but for a, well, friend, that was an agony he had never known.

* * *

From a song of the Chinook people:

_Listen! I sing to the warrior!_

_I sing to the hunter!_

_I sing to the women making camp!_

_Fear the place of the broken cliffs!_

_Fear the great waterfall and the lake!_

_Fear the hills and the woods!_

_But most of all, fear the cliffs,_

_Fear the ledges,_

_Fear the caves!_

_In the depth of the night it wakens,_

_Ghost Bear._

_It is like a bear but not a bear,_

_It guards its place and will kill,_

_It cannot be hurt by arrow,_

_A spear cannot injure it,_

_Ghost Bear._

_Once in the time of my fathers' father_

_The Chief of the people who live near Fish Bay_

_Had a daughter, Pale Fawn._

_Beautiful as the dawn,_

_Gentle as the spring breeze,_

_Pure and too young to beware._

_The people took in a stranger,_

_A pale man who could not speak,_

_Who only babbled._

_He brought them iron_

_And made them rich._

_Pale Fawn taught Stranger a few words._

_He gave her gifts, finger-rings of bright metal._

_He gave her pearls from the sea._

_And a love grew between Fawn and Stranger._

_But then the Ghost Bear troubled the People,_

_And one day they met in council_

_And in council together decreed a great Hunt._

_The Chief took his warriors to the round Valley,_

_Together with warriors from along Nch'i-Wana*,_

_Took them to hunt the Ghost Bear._

_And all the people went with them._

_Great was the fight with the Ghost Bear!_

_Most of the warriors were killed._

_And while the women lamented,_

_Pale Fawn and Stranger_

_Stole away, wishing to marry._

_Her father was angry,_

_He took his few warriors,_

_And he pursued the lovers along a ledge_

_And to a cavern, the den of a monster,_

_For there lurked the Ghost Bear._

_It pursued the lovers,_

_And they leaped to their deaths,_

_And their bodies were never found,_

_Then it turned on the warriors,_

_And left alive one only,_

_The wounded, dazed Chief,_

_Who found not his daughter,_

_But only two pearls_

_That were gifts from the Stranger._

_And the Chief lost his wits_

_And told a broken story_

_And for the rest of his days_

_Was but as a terrified child._

_Now I sing this to you, that you may remember,_

_Fear the place of the broken cliffs!_

_Fear the great waterfall and the lake!_

_Fear the hills and the woods!_

_But most of all, fear the cliffs,_

_Fear the ledges,_

_Fear the caves!_

_In the depth of the night it wakens,_

_Ghost Bear._

_-A song of a shaman of the Chinook people, never written down._

* * *

In the depth of the night, Wendy and Dipper lay atop their sleeping bags—the nights were still very warm—and under a light blanket. Wendy lay on her back, Dipper on his belly, his arm thrust out over her stomach. They weren't touching skin to skin, so their special kind of telepathy was not working.

Even so, both were dreaming, and their dreams were eerily similar.

In his dream, Dipper saw the couple, Luis Pacallo, a Spaniard with the leanness of long hunger, and the shorter, darker Pale Fawn, a Native American princess in buckskins and braids. They were running from something huge and dark, running along a high ledge.

But as often in nightmare, they made almost no progress. They ran as fast as they could and yet moved as slowly as molasses. And the horrible part was the pursuing _thing_, dark and shapeless, merely ambled and still gained on them. It was too large even to stand on the same ledge they did, but somehow it pursued them none the less.

And the fleeing couple came to a point high above the lake where the ledge gave out.

And still the darkness growled and came.

And the woman screamed, and the man, small as he was, unarmed as he was, insignificant as he was compared to the bulk of that monstrous creature, put her behind him and stood to try to fend off the apparition—

* * *

In her dream, Wendy was the Chinook princess. Her heart within her was shattered. She loved her father, and yet she loved the stranger from the sea, whose name was so foreign she could hardly pronounce it—Luis. Loo-ees. It was a hard word to speak and yet it was delicious on her tongue, for it was his name.

He was not bold, like the man her father favored to become her husband. That was a warrior, much stronger than Luis. Nor was he cunning, like the man her mother thought would be best for her. That was a trader, crafty in dealings that brought wealth to the people.

Unlike both of these suitors, Luis was kind, Luis was gentle, Luis looked at her with eyes that shone with devotion.

Looking into his eyes, she saw love.

And it flew like an arrow into her eyes, and it pierced her heart, and her heart turned to him.

She was sorry for her mother and for her father, both of whom she also loved.

But she knew she could stand their disapproval. She could accept that.

She could not bear the loss of Luis's love.

They sheltered for three long days and nights in the mouth of a cave, looking out every day to see her father's warriors still seeking them. They had some water from a dripping spring, but only a pittance of food, some dried venison. Luis gave it all to her. He always said he was not hungry.

And now, as they lay asleep, something alien moved in the cave.

In truth it was a tunnel, leading they knew not where—by creeping and squirming, they might have explored it, but they hoped to escape if the Chief gave up his hunt.

And they had no light, and twenty steps from the cave mouth, darkness filled the tunnel.

Now, as they slept, something was with them. The Darkness was with them.

And without having breath, the Darkness somehow . . . lived.

* * *

Now in Dipper's dream, he had changed from observer to participant. He and Wendy teetered on the ledge, and the creature, the force, the ghost, whatever it was, loomed. They had nowhere left to run. If they leaped and made the lake, they might live.

Odds were against them.

Falling over a hundred feet, they would hit the water at more than fifty miles per hour. It would be better than slamming into concrete, but not by much. At the best, they'd break bones and very likely lose consciousness and drown. At worst—

Wendy seized his wrist.

"Trust me, Dipper!"

And pulling him, she leaped—

* * *

Wendy's dream shifted to the moment when she seized Luis's wrist and jumped.

And she woke up and yelled, "Dipper!"

He was awake at once. "What?"

"It's coming!"

And with a deep sick feeling, he realized what she said was true.

* * *

_*_ _Nch'i-Wana, the Native American words for "Great River," meaning the one we call the Columbia._


	20. Time Scramble

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16-17, 2017)

* * *

_20: Time Scramble_

* * *

_Midnight came._

_And for some reason hung around._

_Not for everyone. Not for anyone in what might be called the Realm of the Living._

_But for two . . . it went on nearly forever._

The first was a skull stuck in a cleft of stone.

Another lay one hundred and thirty-six feet below, beneath the water at the edge of the lake, but also buried under deep centuries of silt.

One skull was male, the other female.

Somehow from somewhere the two skulls regained spirit, or a dim reflection of spirit. A kind of awareness, at any rate.

Now for two reasons this was stranger than you even think. Both had to do with what happens to a person after death, once he or she has gone on to, as Hamlet again remarked, "The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns." Odd, when you think about it, because in the first scene of the play Hamlet's father does indeed return from that bourn and later has quite a long conversation with his son, offering him some fatherly advice ("Whack your uncle," it boiled down to). But it is what it is, as Shakespeare did not say.

Anyway, concerning the Afterlife, the Chinook peoples of old believed fervently that when a person died, that person's soul would wander for a while on the Paths of the Dead, meditating all that it had learned during life. And when in the fullness of time a relative of the dead person sired or birthed a child, the spirit would enter into the child. Sometimes new parents would look into a newborn's face and immediately spot a resemblance.

Then, whatever the child's name, from then on, the father might call his son "Grandfather," or the mother of the baby might call her daughter "Great-Aunt." Souls cycled and re-cycled through the family over ages. It was a tidy arrangement and considerably diminished the Chinooks' carbon footprint.

On the other hand, Luis Pacallo had been a Catholic. He had his failings, but on the whole, he really tried to be a good one. He believed that after death, his soul would enter Purgatory—for he was too keenly aware of his errors and failings (and too humble and modest) even to hope for Heaven—and once in Purgatory, he expected to remain for hundreds or even thousands of years while his sins were purged away.

Yet somehow neither of those things had happened.

Tachimo's—her name was not directly translatable as Spring Fawn or Young Fawn or Pale Fawn, but rather "Tender-Little Fawn-Born-in-Early-Spring"—and Luis Pacallo's spirits had drowsed and dreamed.

These were hardly even the tattered wisps of dreams, lighter than the puffs of cloud that form and then dissolve on a windy spring day. The two were no longer aware of themselves as personalities; they were mere flickers of awareness, yet they were capable of a certain level of dreaming. They had troubled dreams of parting and loneliness.

Dreams in which they yearned for each other.

Dreams in which they searched without success—but above all, dim dreams, in which they were less than half aware.

Now on this strange night, so many dreams after they had died, their spirits came to a kind of consciousness.

They knew themselves.

They longed for each other.

And in that unending midnight, each reached out.

* * *

The moon was in its last quarter and rose around half-past midnight.

But impossibly it hung high overhead and full.

And then it wasn't.

And then when Dipper looked away, it was again.

He and Wendy had pulled on boots and stood outside their tent, tense and staring. He held a flashlight; she gripped the haft of her inherited axe, the one that could cleave even a spook or a demon.

Neither of these was anywhere to be seen. Around the two, the hills stretched away, barely visible in the glimmer of starlight and the intermittent moonlight. These hills ran to tall grass, with few trees.

They stood on a grassy dome, and then without transition, they were lost in a dark forest.

One moment they stood on gently rising ground, close to their tent on the crest of a low, rounded hill.

But in the next, they felt the hard cool stone of the cliffs against their backs, and they looked out over a sheer drop straight down to water and trees below.

"What's happening?" Wendy asked. "How'd we get on the ledge?"

"Don't know," Dipper said. "Hallucination, I guess? All I know is I feel strange!"

"Me, too. Like something's messing with my head."

"I'm going to touch your arm. Don't be startled."

"Good idea."

Her skin was soft and cool beneath his palm. Their perceptions merged, as they did when they used their touch-telepathy.

"Whoa!" Wendy said.

Dipper knew why. The two views, the forest and the bare hills, the little hill and the precipitous drop just beyond their toes, madly superimposed—both visible at once, each as real as the other. It was as though the world had become a double exposure.

_Dip! What's doing this?_

—_I don't know! Wait—are we Wendy and Dipper? Or Pale Fawn and Pacallo?_

_We're us, dude!_

—_I think—_

_What?_

—_I think something's trying to force us—to be them instead!_

* * *

"Gah!" Mabel said, picking herself after a sprawling fall. "Do we even know where we are?"

"Within a mile or less of the drone," Ford said, studying the slightly larger than cellphone video receptor he held. Currently it was on map mode, and it showed a glowing pale-blue dot somewhere in front of them. "If we hadn't parked too soon and had to walk so far, and then found that river blocking our path, we'd have been there hours ago. How are you holding up, Leon?"

Markheim said, "Surprisingly, not too bad. I haven't walked a postal route for fifteen years, but I guess walking's a habit that comes back to you. And somehow—" he inhaled deeply—"somehow this—the woods, the open sky, finding a path—somehow this feels natural."

"You're not lugging the cannon," Mabel pointed out, more or less sweetly.

Markheim sniffed the air. "A doe and two fawns are upwind of us. They smell of fear."

"What?" Ford asked. "Are you serious?"

Markheim seemed to jerk awake. "What? What did I say? For a moment—" he inhaled. "I lost it," he said sadly. "For a moment there I had the keenest sense of smell—brother to the wolf. Why am I talking like this?"

"It must be whatever monster is endangering Wendy and Dipper," Ford said. "Let's go!

Mabel grunted as they started forward, moving faster than they had in hours. "Hey, Grunkle Ford! I get first shot, OK?"

"No! You haven't trained. The trees are thinning ahead. I think we're coming to the hills. More open there, we should go faster."

"I have _too_ been trained!" Mabel protested. "Hours of training! I learned to operate a bazooka with _Tank Force Normandy! _I can flat clear a screen of monsters with my trusty machine gun in _Goons from the Moon! _And even Dipper can't outzap me with a laser razor in _Space Marines versus the Drone Queens!"_

"Sounds exciting," Markheim said.

"Oh, babes, you have no idea," Mabel chuckled. "First time Dipper came into the Arcade and found my initials in the number one high-score spot on _Generic First Person Shooter, _I thought he'd break down and cry! Ha! That was a good day."

"Quieter, please," Ford said. "If—we—can—push through—this brush—we ought to come out—not far—from the drone—signal—"

"Oh, my God," Markheim said, making it sound more like a prayer than an interjection.

They were beyond the eaves of the forest. Ahead and above they could see the open sky. And it had filled with angrily glowing, boiling, flame-red clouds.

A faint whirr and a soft _ding_ sounded in the stunned silence.

"Mabel Pines," Mabel said, "locked and loaded!"

Even in his dazed state, Ford murmured reprovingly, "The phrase should be 'loaded and locked, Mabel.'"

"Whatever," Mabel said. "Show me what to shoot at!"

"Listen," Markheim said.

They all stood holding their breaths.

"What's that?" Mabel whispered.

"Drums," Ford said.

"War drums," Markheim added darkly. He spoke a strange language then, one that he did not know—nor did Ford, linguist though he was. In an ancient dialect of Chinook, Markheim called, "Come, my warriors."

He strode past Ford, looking somehow taller and straighter in the darkness of night.

And—Mabel wondered—where the heck had he found the feathered headdress? And the long pointed spear?

But then they vanished, and he was just a short, heavyset silhouette leading them to the crest of a hill.

The Mark V quantum destabilizer hummed in her grip. A light cycled from orange to green.

"Loaded and locked," Mabel muttered. "Loaded and locked."

* * *

The Ghost Bear felt torn—prey was ahead, weak prey, small, mere humans that had dared to peer into its lair through an eye of glass, metal, and lightning.

Yet—it could not be—behind, on the ledge, he heard two others, ones he had driven to death many hundreds of seasons ago, more than a thousand of them.

"You are dead," the Ghost Bear growled in its own language, which it alone could understand or pronounce. "You cannot be there."

And yet, everything told it—

There they were. Seeking each other; calling for each other.

And the spirit of the man forlornly called, _Where are you, my love?_

Silently, the spirit of the woman answered and was heard: _Is that you? Are you near?_

_I think I can hear you._

_Did we fall?_

_Did we die?_

_Luis?_

_Tachimo?_

_My love?_

_My love?_

_YES! _They both thought at once. To them it seemed as if they shouted the word fiercely.

Yet they could barely hear each other. Only one other being in the entire world could perceive their mournful spirit-whispers. The woman's affirmation was in the language of her tribe and sounded like "E-éh!" The man spoke his own language, and his word was "_Sí!"_

Single words, one meaning, two souls, one spirit, and the one word brimmed with love and anguish, with barely recognized hope, with the deepest yearning, and with terror not of monsters but of loneliness unending contained within it.

The two words that were one, in other words, were human words, spoken not by voices, but by human spirits.

Had any human heard or even sensed them—anyone, no matter how crusty, cynical, and foul-tempered—that person's heart might have broken.

But the creature the Chinook called Ghost Bear—

It had no heart to break.


	21. Lovers

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16-17, 2017)

* * *

_21: Lovers_

* * *

**From the Journals of Stanford Pines: ** _I have been re-reading and reflecting on my catalogue of ghosts in my Journal 3. How naïve and brash those descriptions appear to me now! I have gradually come to realize that the variety of ghosts is so huge that it may be impossible to categorize them all._

_As it was, I began with what I considered a low-level entity—the playful, would-be-friendly, small specter. Since then I have learned that "below" that rank perhaps a hundred or more other distinct varieties appear on the ghostly spectrum, at least 20% of them incapable of manifesting strongly enough to be detected by living humans who do not have access to highly specialized sensors and devices._

_And instead of ten categories, why, there should be thousands, ranging from weak glows and faint sounds heard while one is on the verge of sleeping to re-enactments of crucial moments from the ghost's mortal existence—most typically the moments before and during the person's death._

_The baffling and, I admit, the chilling part is that the more angry and hostile the ghost is, the stronger it is. Though it seems to me that most ghosts are, in the final analysis, incapable of physically harming the living, the residue, a minority, may have the wherewithal and the will to do us great harm. At the top of this list of vengeful, destructive ghosts is a variety I am calling, provisionally, the Reapers._

* * *

Luis Pacallo and Tachimo had become strong.

Well—strong as far as typical ghosts are concerned. Probably not strong in the popular sense of what a scary ghost is like.

Those movies where ghosts hurl people across rooms? Crush entire houses like sparrow's eggs between the thighs of Zangief?* Spin fully-loaded city buses end over end through the air for a quarter of a mile?

Forget them. Most ghosts would give their lives if they could just move a grain of salt, a mustard seed, a soap bubble, a quarter of an inch, if that were not pointless to begin with. Mark Twain supposedly once observed that being well-dressed was an advantage because naked people had little to no influence on society. Dial that down by a factor of a thousand, and that's about how much influence the average ghost has on the material world.**

About the most the typical ghost can do is to manifest itself as a very pale blue mist, faintly luminous, more or less in the same shape as the person was when alive. People sometimes believe all ghosts moan and rattle chains, but that's also mostly a myth.

What they can do is influence a spectators' mind so the frightened (living) human _believes _her or she hears sounds. But put a voice recorder in the room, turn it on, and you won't hear moans and chains. You may hear the owner of the recorder whisper, "I pee'd myself," though.

That's the one power all ghosts have. They scare people. Why this is so is not clear. If you weren't afraid of Aunt Mathilde Anne when she was alive, despite the fact that she had a mustache and coffee breath and insisted on kissing you, why should you shriek when she shows up ten years after her death?

Hey, control your fear next time you run across a ghost. Invite it to sit down, take a load of ectoplasm off. You may be surprised. A lonely ghost can prove to be kind, loving, and loyal, are capable of learning a dozen or more tricks, and when you go for walks with them, they don't stop every ten feet to wee on a light pole.

Well, most don't.

Now, remember, this is the typical ghost—the one who held no fierce grudges or resentments, the one not out to seek revenge. Hatred and anger are powerful dynamos. The kind of haunt fueled by them—well, Dipper ran into one in a haunted high school once, and with them, all bets are off.

Tachimo and Luis were not fueled by such negative emotions, but by love—and consequently, they could become real—in a way—to each other, but not, and this is the point, nearly as real to any living witness. Oh, someone seeing the two might remark on the strange, shapeless glowing blobs, but they definitely would not see the two as they had been in life.

To the ill-starred lovers, that meant they had become strong. Why, they did not know, how, they did not care about. But for the first time in centuries, they felt and seemed to be truly together.

They stood, to all appearances (though they weren't appearing) in mid-air, three feet off the edge of the cliff. They had tried to embrace, but as ghosts, their bodies were insubstantial, mere appearance, and they could not touch.

They could communicate. It seemed to them they were speaking, though they no longer possessed the physical equipment to speak. In reality, they communicated mind to mind, which overcame the language barrier. In life, Luis was a dull scholar of foreign languages—it had taken him years to learn even such basic Chinook terms as those dealing with food and sleep.

Now, though—

"_What happened to us?" _he asked. "_Do you remember?"_

"_I remember as I can remember some dreams," _she told him. _"Long days and nights in the cave. And then the sense that something terrible had awakened and was there with us. We ran. We could see my father and his people far below. They could also see us, but their arrows fell short. Yet something—the thing from the cave—did it—are we dead? Did it kill us?"_

"_I don't know. You look different. Still most beautiful, still the one I love, but different. Am I pale as moonlight, too?"_

"_Yes. And I can see through you. But you are the man I love."_

"_I can't remember what happened."_

"_I think we—jumped."_

"_It is too far down. Even if we landed in the water, we would die."_

She reached as if to touch his cheek, though he could feel no pressure of fingers. _"To die with you would be better than living without you."_

He frowned. "_There are . . . others."_

"_Yes. Two lovers, like us. And the dark thing senses them and hunts them."_

"_Can we help them?"_

"_I . . . don't know. I want to see them."_

Those were somehow—who knows how?—somehow the magic words.

* * *

"Dude, down the hill!"

Dipper struggled to see. The world kept shifting focus, as if nothing around him were quite real—well, nothing but Wendy. Hillside and ledge, tent and cliff, all of it jumbled together in some strange way.

But now—one second down the hillside, as Wendy had said, and the next a little way down the ledge—he saw two vaguely human shapes, glowing, patches of moonlight on fog, but shaped like people. Two. A girl and a guy.

"I think—those may be the ghosts that are supposed to guard the cave," Dipper said. He raised his voice: "Tachimo! Luis Pacallo! If that's you, speak to us!"

"Their lips are moving," Wendy said. "Can't hear them, though."

"I think they're trying to beckon us," Dipper said. "Trust them?"

"I'm not sure I trust anything, man," Wendy replied. "Whoa!"

A kind of drumming roar rolled over them. It came from a darkness beneath the roiling red sky—a darkness that came toward them on gigantic legs, that loomed above the trees. It was still distant, but it came on fast.

"Come on," Dipper said, grabbing Wendy's wrist. "Maybe they know how to fight this thing!"

_Dipper, don't count on it. I think this must be what killed them!_

—_Maybe they've learned more since dying! _Aloud, he called, "Hey! Don't drift away! If you want to show us something, let us get closer!"

But a fixed distance of perhaps twenty yards seemed permanently set between the human couple and the ghostly one. Dipper and Wendy either edged to the foot of the hill or crept along the ledge on the bluffs—hard to tell, now one, now the other, now both somehow combined—but the two glowing figures still hovered the same distance away, and they still beckoned.

_Dip, I think we're more on the ledge than at our campsite now!_

—_There's no way to climb up to it. This must be illusion._

_I think I see the cave ahead—the ghosts are just outside it, see?_

The roar sounded again, confusingly further off than it had been. It held rage and bafflement, as though the Ghost Bear wondered what had become of them—and then it came again, audibly louder, and they realized it had turned in its tracks and now hurried toward them—

"How do we fight it?" Dipper yelled in frustration.

He wasn't sure whether the ghosts answered him, or whether lightning had struck the stone cliff two feet from his face. Whatever, the explosion blasted him off the ledge, and he felt himself falling.

* * *

_*Don't try crushing sparrows' eggs between your thighs at home. First, it leaves a sticky mess that even after only a few minutes is difficult to shower off. Second, sparrows flat hate it, and worst of all, unique among birds, sparrows bear grudges for decades. You do NOT want to step outside one nice spring morning to be pecked to death by sparrows. Trust me on this one._

_**Naked people and ghosts—that's another thing. Why do ghosts even wear clothes? Their clothes weren't alive to start with—well, maybe in a sense, but a ghost showing up wearing a sheep instead of a woolen overcoat would probably suffer humiliation. Better just to go starkers, I'd say. Or—here's an idea—since ghosts can evidently consciously manifest and become visible, they could just EDIT OUT the naughty bits! "A gorgeous ghost glided toward him, an exotic-looking woman with piercing eyes, a face like the sculpture of a fallen angel, shapely arms and throat absolutely humongous xxxxxxxx, the left one a little larger than the right, and her xxxxx were so xxxxx that he involuntarily felt xxx xxxx xxxxxx. And her stomach was like an heap of wheat, and below that her xxxxxx xxxxxxx looked so eager that Earl wished he had a big xxxxx with a xxxxxxx monkey wrench and xxxxx. However, Earl was not frightened, but he did badly need to have a lie-down." Hah. Let Stephen King get ahold of THAT!_


	22. Midnight Confusion

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16-17, 2017)

* * *

_22: Midnight Confusion_

Beneath the clouded sky, Mabel gave a fierce, triumphant war whoop: "Oh YEAH, baby! That's what I'm talkin' about!"

"Mabel!" Ford commanded, "Give me that at once!"

Mabel reluctantly handed over the quantum destabilizer. "But I shot it!"

Ford took the device, held it muzzle-down, and pressed the recharge button. It hummed and a display on the side lit up. They had eleven pulses left. "You fired the device," Ford corrected firmly. "I'm not sure you actually shot anything. Let's see what you might have hit."

They walked up the hill. The curiously glowing storm clouds were receding off to the east, and their flashlights gave the only illumination.

In the light, they saw was left of Dipper's tent lying on the grass, unfolded and pierced—twin holes about eighteen inches in diameter through and through, with green blades showing through. The tent showed no scorch marks because this version of the quantum destabilizer didn't generate heat in whatever it struck. It simply took the target out of existence, though it was conceivable ("theoretically possible," as Fiddleford put it) that in some other dimension some baffled creature was puzzling over two perfect circles of fabric that had inexplicably zapped into existence.

Beyond the hill, some of the trees had been in the way, and Ford's flashlight revealed that their branches now had a circular tunnel cut through the upper branches.

Ford had first devised the destabilizer and had built the prototype while wandering in the infinite dimensions following his accident with the Portal.* Since then, Fiddleford McGucket had refined and enhanced the basic model until it was fearsomely efficient. However, after some urging from Ford, McGucket had voluntarily limited the destructive range.

McGucket figgered, and could back up his figgerin' with math, that with the proper amplification it would be possible to use the destabilizer to blast a mile-deep crater into the moon. However, with the damper now on the weapon, nothing over a mile from the weapon would have been disintegrated. The bluffs were roughly a mile away. Perhaps now they had a new shallow cave in them, round, as if a gigantic ice-cream scoop had removed a heaping helping of basalt.

"Where are they?" Markheim asked, shining his flashlight around the hilltop. "They were standing right here. Where did they go?"

"Mason!' Ford yelled. "Wendy!"

Nothing but silence answered him.

Mabel covered her mouth with both hands, her brown eyes wide with shock. "I didn't hit them, did I?" she gasped.

Ford shook his head. "I shouldn't think so. When I caught sight of them, they were considerably downhill from the tent and not in line with it. If you'd hit them, there'd be a hole in the hill, not the tent. What were you aiming at, anyway?"

"The great bit fifty-foot-tall thing!" Mabel said. "Like a giant with no head! It was coming this way! Didn't you see it?"

In the glow from his flashlight, Ford looked at Markheim, who shook his head. "No," Ford said. "Are you sure it wasn't a trick of the light? Maybe the trees over there?"

"It was taller than the trees!" Mabel insisted. "Wait." She shone her own flashlight—well, truth to tell, not hers, she had borrowed one of Dipper's ultra-powerful focused-beam dealies—toward the trees, fifty yards distant. "There! See?"

Ford joined his flashlight beam to hers. "Remarkable." In the circles of light, a ragged path showed—at least ten feet wide—where mature trees had been broken off at the roots or pushed over.

"Something very big," Markheim said. "Ghost Bear."

"Except it isn't a ghost, and it isn't a bear," Ford said. "It's some creature of great height and strength, judging by what it's done to the trees."

"Skukumweet," murmured Markheim.

"What?"

Sounding confused, Markheim said, "Skukumweet. I don't even know what it means, or why the word came to me!"

"The roots of your word are 'enormous, strong' and 'bear,'" Ford said. "It's a dialect of a Chinookian language. But I think what we may be dealing with is what a middle-American tribe called a _wendigo. _It's a combination of evil spirit and matter—possibly a possessed human, possibly a gigantic animal, or even animated stone. I wish I had more knowledge of the ancient Native American myths about Gravity Falls."

"Where did my brother and Wendy go?" Mabel asked frantically, maybe taking off from the word "wendigo." "I _didn't _shoot them, I know I didn't. What happened to them?"

"That's problematic," Ford said. "I can offer one hypothesis. The destabilizer ray spills a lot of paranormal energy. Possibly the creature was able to harness and use it to teleport itself and its prey elsewhere, away from the destabilizer threat. Or if not that—well, I don't know!"

"Dipper!" Mabel yelled. "DIPPER!"

A faint echo came back from the bluffs: "—per!"

"The drone," Ford said. He stooped and rummaged in the overturned and scattered materials of the camp until he found it and the controller. "Here, Mabel—let's see—bless Fiddleford for his batteries, an eighty-per-cent charge on both the monitor and the drone! Let me switch it to infra-red night vision—and now turn the monitor on—here, hold this, stand away, and I'll launch it."

With a whirr, the pentacopter rose. The monitor that Mabel held showed the three of them standing on the hillside, glowing greenish-white and shrinking fast.

"Look!" Mabel said. "What's this big smear?"

Still manipulating the controls, Ford glanced at the monitor. Beginning where the trees had been shoved aside and broken, a fading green trace led curving away from the hills. "A heat trail. It's turned east and seems to be heading for the lake. Let's get back to the car!"

"It's like an hour away!" Mabel said.

Markheim said, "No. Twenty minutes! Follow me!"

He started off at a curious sort of confident jog, knees lifting high, back leaning forward. He no longer looked at all like a pudgy mailman, but like a Chinook warrior hastening on a hunt.

"Follow him," Ford said. He and Mabel scrambled.

* * *

"Are you all right?" asked Wendy and Dipper in unison as they pushed up from the stony ground. Then Dipper said, "You first!"

"Yeah, I think I'm OK," Wendy said, shaking out her arms. "You?"

"I'll let you know when my head stops spinning."

"Man! At least I held onto my axe. Totally dark here. What happened, Dip? Something blow up?"

"I think maybe lightning struck," Dipper said. "Those weird clouds—where the heck are we now?"

Wherever, it was dark, but not, as Wendy had first thought, totally. Off to Dipper's right, an orange smear of light did show, and they edged toward it, over a fairly smooth stone surface.

Then Dipper clonked his head on a low-hanging—stone? "Ow!" He felt with his hand and discovered a stone ceiling. "We're in a cave!"

"Yeah, dude, stoop down. Come this way."

They reached the dull glow and discovered it was an opening—in fact, the mouth of the cliffside cave they had seen with the drone's help. "God, we're high up," Wendy said, cautiously looking down into darkness. The rolling, glowing orange clouds seemed to be blowing their way on a strong wind—though the two of them could feel no breeze—and they gave a dull, faint light to the treetops far below.

They had been sleeping in their clothes, and Dipper remembered that and then pulled the small flashlight from his jeans pocket. He turned it on and looked around. "This must be a lava tube," he said. "Either that, or glacial melt dug it out." He shone the light on the ceiling, which curved fairly smoothly down and showed no stalactites.

The stone was a uniform medium gray, with glittery spots of something, mica or perhaps some mineral ore, twinkling here and there when the light hit them. He stooped under a kind of buttress, the one on which he'd bumped his head, then stood up and explored a few steps into the cave, now about fifteen feet from floor to arched ceiling. To his left the passageway continued, but the beam couldn't penetrate the darkness. "It goes back as far as I can see."

"And it curves," Wendy said, coming to stand by his side. "I think it's heading downward."

"Toward the lake," Dipper agreed.

"Yeah," Wendy said. "Or maybe—could this be where the cave behind the Falls comes out?"

"It . . . could be." Dipper recalled reading something in one of Ford's Journals. "Grunkle Ford said he and F—Fiddleford, he meant—once explored the cavern. They didn't find the gooey gel, because I guess they kept moving, and they found that the cave did lead upward through the bluffs. He wrote about discovering some sort of living mineral. He called it 'geodite,' and he said it formed little softball-sized creatures that chirped like birds and clinked around on legs made of crystals."

"They sound cute," Wendy said.

"Yeah, but one bit him and drew blood."

"You think that's how the weird jelly fungus got started?"

"Who knows?"

They both fell silent, both thinking of the strange gel life they had discovered behind Gravity Falls Falls—it had tried to absorb them but had in the end settled for creating translucent, living images of them—a jelly-Wendy and a jelly-Dipper, doomed to life inside the caves forever, since light and heat killed them.

Wendy shivered a little at the memory. "I don't think we should explore that way, dude."

"Agreed. Let's see if there's some way down from the ledge."

Then Wendy noticed a gleam against one wall, in a sort of niche. "Shine the light here, Dip."

He did. "Looks like we discovered the treasure," he said. In the circle of light, silver and gold coins gleamed, though dust had dulled them. It was not a huge pile—about enough to be a double handful.

"Take them?" Wendy asked.

"I don't think they're important right now. Let's go."

They went onto the ledge—the roiling clouds had come perceptibly nearer—and stepped out onto the narrow shelf of rock.

"Careful," Wendy said. "Not much room to put our feet!"

"No hand rails, either," Dipper muttered. The ledge, spackled here and there with lichens or sprouting some struggling grass, was nowhere more than two feet wide. He shone the light back in the direction of the glowing clouds. "Well, we know the rockfall that way breaks the ledge. So I guess—toward the river?"

"The place they call Lovers' Leap," Wendy said grimly.

He turned the flashlight that way. "Whoa!"

Wendy looked over his shoulder. "What's the—oh, my God!"

So Wendy saw them too—not people, but shapes that the light fell on without illuminating.

That wasn't necessary.

They were luminous in themselves.

Standing side by side on the narrow ledge, looking like puffs of mist or smoke, two people stood, a man and a woman.

Except they weren't people, not any longer.

"Them again. The ghosts," Dipper said.

Wendy said, "Tachimo. Luis."

And the two silent, ghostly figures urgently beckoned the living couple to follow them toward the far end of the ledge.

To Lovers' Leap.

* * *

_*Ford had wanted to use the quantum destabilizer to eliminate Bill Cipher if he could ever physically reach the Nightmare Realm and force a showdown with the dream demon. His efforts to construct the weapon and his theft of the vital components (in the dimensions where they existed, they were not for sale) had for some time made him a wanted interdimensional criminal. However, his most serious crime wasn't theft, but rather Ford's association with a much more infamous rogue fellow scientist and dimension-hopper named Sanchez, but that's a long story._


	23. Mysteries and Monstrosities

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16-17, 2017)

* * *

_23: Mysteries and Monstrosities_

On a bright clear Wednesday in October, except Wednesdays and Octobers hadn't been invented yet, s spacecraft in its fourteen thousandth year of exploring the galaxy, only years had not yet been invented either, had one of those one-in-a-million mishaps that will crop up if you give them enough time.

This one simultaneously engaged the ship's trans-light drive while disabling its shields. On a faster-than-light interstellar craft, that gave the crew the life expectancy of a Mayfly, only Mays had not yet been invented, that had wandered by mistake into the caldera of an erupting volcano, which had been invented and were enthusiastically adding to the mountainous crescent in what, when it was invented, one day would be the northwestern part of the USA.

Flies had been invented too, by the way, along with Megacerops (horse-related animals that you would swear was some kind of rhino if one showed up in your yard), Subhyracodon (an actual rhino that was only the size of a cow), Hyaenodon, a little bit like dogs but more like a nightmare, assorted deer, cats, and small animals, even including hamsters, though even hamster-sized hamster balls had not yet . . . oh, you know.

In the forested northwestern corner of what was still a long way from becoming North America, these animals browsed on ferns or on each other, frolicked among the angiosperms, and, without pausing to consider whether the idea was a good one or not, got on with the business of evolving.

The spacecraft dropped out of hyper speed but still going far too fast and far too close to the gravity well of Earth, screamed down at an angle from space, ripping all the way from the east coast, across the continent, and heading for an inevitable impact just before reaching the western coast. Its blinding passage launched a shock wave that blew down forests from what is now Canada through what would become the Dakotas, Iowa, Idaho, and Oregon—by then, the swath of trees blown down was six miles wide and the sheer air friction caught them on fire.

Before the alien at the helm could even react, the ship smashed into a much taller Cascade Range—the Yellowstone hotspot at that time was in the area, and beyond the forests, mountain-building was thrusting up new volcanoes every day—and came to an abrupt and terminal end of its journey about four miles beneath the surface.

But that didn't last for many nanoseconds. All that energy had to go somewhere, and where it went was into an unimaginable explosion that changed trillions of tons of dense rock into vapor instantaneously. It wiped all animal life out for a radius of more than a hundred miles, selectively killed larger fauna for another three hundred miles all around, and denuded the forests for nearly two hundred miles from the epicenter. Big damn boom.

The spaceship had been designed for tough eventualities. It could theoretically, given enough time to accelerate, shoot right through a Class-M star without singeing its occupants.

However, a sudden collision with a planetary body—and with the shields and related inertial dampers not engaged, at that—was quite another thing. The entire crew perished , though some areas of the ship, the stasis rooms, were not seriously affected, and the startlingly tough and resilient hull maintained its integrity. Not quite true; some outlying pods were shaved off, but the ship was roughly 98% intact. As for the stasis rooms, they existed on the fringes of other dimensions, and as far as anything inside them might know, nothing unusual had occurred.

The ship was left lying at a slight incline, stem to stern, in the center of a very deep crater, sixty miles in diameter.

Beyond the lethal effects of the impact and explosion, in the next three centuries the aftereffects triggered a continuing, though fortunately localized, mass extinction. River courses had been changed, fault lines had been disturbed, and all the superheated stone vapor rose high in the atmosphere and set off a temporary but very cold ice age.

As the spacecraft rested there at the bottom of its blasted-out depression, more or less intact, larger clumps of rock and soil pattered down all around it and onto it. It was basically your generic flying saucer, albeit an extremely large one

Sharing the crater with the main ship were those tiny pods that had sheared off during impact. One of these, a miniature stasis chamber, contained the Shapeshifter, in embryonic form. Coincidentally, some thirty million years after the impact, Stanford Pines's rock hammer clicked on the exact spot to turn off the stasis field, and the tiny Shapeshifter woke up. Another stasis pod contained living cells of a plant-animal hybrid. A couple of dozen other alien species, most of them dead, and odd little bits of technology fell to earth along the incoming track.

Eons passed, bringing with them a major era of cold, when enormous glaciers ground away north of the area. Torrential, years-long rains clawed at the volcanoes as they lost their fire, eroding them bit by bit. Close to thirty million years passed.

Then, in pre-Columbian days (about 15,000 years BC), humans wandered into the area. They were proto-Native Americans, nomadic hunter-gatherers. When groups of them reached the valley—close to its modern size and shape by then, with the spaceship completely concealed under thick layers of silt left by glacial run-off—their first thought was, "Looks like good hunting here."

Their second, unfortunately, was "What the hell is that—urgghhh!"

"That" was a precursor to the Kodiak bear—a short-faced predator that as an adult weighed in around 3,000 pounds and, standing on its hind feet, towered fifteen feet above the surroundings. It had been living in the Valley for well over ten thousand years at that point.

Not the species. That individual bear had been alive that long. As a nearly-grown cub, it had found a sealed egg made of metal (not that it ever knew that) and played with it until it tore the alloy open. Something fell out and tried to crawl away.

The bear had eaten it.

And, wouldn't you know it, what the bear ate was a specimen the aliens had picked up from somewhere in our galaxy. It was a small plant-animal hybrid, infinitely adaptable.

The bear ate it, and in turn, it ate the bear.

Like a parasite, the little alien thing connected to the bear's biological systems. It altered the flesh, the blood, the bone, the nerves . . . the brain. The bear lost its identity and became a mutant bear, not exactly a chimera—a composite monster, that is, like the Sphinx with the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head and breasts of a beautiful woman who didn't stand one chance in hell of ever getting a date to the prom. Or like the Dedoriachiion, a monstrous creature with the head of a lion and the body of a lion, but _not the same lion_.

What the bear had become might be termed an agglomerative monster. When it ate living creatures, it incorporated something of them into itself. By the time Dipper and Wendy ran up against it, it was part bear, part human, part goat, part duck, part pterodactyl, part moose, part mouse, part fish, and less than one per cent nonfat dry milk.

Unfortunately for the humans that night, one of the monstrosity's meals had been a warrior hot in pursuit of Tachimo and Luis—and the part of him that made up the creature was not conscious thought (it could not be said to be conscious in any recognizable way) but a thirst for carrying out that last mission—preventing the lovers from getting away from the chief of the tribe.

It came on implacably. Unlike humans, it could cling to the cliff and scale a ninety-degree rock face. Even on a two-foot-wide ledge, it could find balance. When it came to a gap, thirty feet wide, it could extend a paw, stretching out like rubber until it reached the far side of the gap, and then flow across, its body diminishing on one side and filling up on the other until it was across.

No wonder the Native Americans had thought of it as a ghost bear.

And it could not die. At least it never had, and so it believed, as far as it could, that it could not die. Yet it was mortal. Certain things could be fatal to it—a swim in molten lava would do it, or perhaps a direct strike by a lightning bolt.

A shot from a quantum destabilizer—well, that might work. Maybe. You could never tell until you tried.

* * *

Up on the ledge, the shadowy, smoky forms waited until Dipper and Wendy closed in and then . . . they merged with the living humans. Or . . . encompassed them. Dipper saw Wendy as a tall, dark-skinned princess; she saw him as a muscular, bearded Spaniard.

But, holding hands, they were still themselves.

_What do they want us to do, Dip?_

—_I'm not sure—maybe go to the end of the ledge and try to . . . to do it right? To jump and live?_

_Don't think we can manage that!_

—_Are you getting anything from them? I can't feel anything. You look different—_

_So do you. I like the real you better._

—_Same here, but—_

They staggered. Around the curve of the cliffs, off in the darkness, something bellowed, roared, screamed.

The stone seemed to vibrate.

_Dip! It's coming for us!_

—_Come on._

_We know we can't get away in that direction!_

—_We can't stay here!_

Knowing they were losing ground to the pursuer, they hurried—as much as they could—along the ledge.

And then—then, of all times—Dipper's phone rang—Mabel's ringtone.

He grabbed it. "Hello!"

"Where are you, Brobro?"

"We're up on a ledge, getting close to the west side of the lake! Listen—"

"We're bouncing across a field—ugh!—and we'll get as close to the lake as we—oof!—can. What the heck's the thing chasing you?"

"Ghost Bear, the natives called it—"

He heard Mabel yell, "Guys! A ghost bear's after them!"

Faintly, Dipper heard a man's voice speaking a strange language. "Who's that?"

"I don't think he knows himself! His name's Markheim, but he keeps trying to change into this Indian guy. And sometimes he even has a spear!"

Then the man's voice spoke to Dipper, so loudly that he had to hold the phone away from his ear.

And Wendy answered in the same unknown speech.

"Give it back!" Mabel again. "He grabbed my phone. I think he's a little bit n-u-t-s, and—"

Then Ford's voice: "There's the lake! Everyone out!"

"Dip, I see the headlights down there!" Wendy yelled.

The thing behind them somewhere roared again.

"Come on!" Wendy said. Now she'd edged around him—dangerously—and took the lead.

She held his hand and spoke to him telepathically: _It's OK. Fawn's dad gave her his blessing just now._

—_I don't know what's going on!_

_We're gonna have to jump—and we have to hit the lake, or we're dead._

Something was scrambling along the ledge within fifty feet of them now. A bright light stabbed upwards and nailed them to the cliff—one of Fiddleford's big focused flashlights, with its blindingly white tint.

—_Damn!_

_Dipper, I'm surprised at you! What happened?_

—_Just dropped my phone!_

_Damn!_

* * *

"What is that thing?" Mabel asked as the light found a huge creature, half-walking on the ledge, half-clinging to the stone wall like a gigantic spider. "Is that the ghost bear? It doesn't look like a bear! _Or_ a ghost—"

Markheim, who had dashed into the water and stood in up to his hips, shouted something ululating and high-pitched—a warrior's death-chant—and drew back his arm. Though he held nothing, he swept his hand forward in a beautiful follow-through, and a glowing blue lance of light shot upward, into the heart of the monster.

It reacted with a jerk. But it came onward, now just twenty feet from the figures up on the ledge, who seemed to be, but did not look like, Wendy and Dipper—

"Mabel, keep the light on that thing! Steady—steady!"

"I bet I could hit it from this distance," Mabel complained, but Ford was centering the sights of the quantum destabilizer himself.

Markheim, now sounding like a retired USPS employee, sloshed out of the lake and said, "They've got nowhere left to go! Do something!"

Clenching his jaw, knowing that the creature was already too close to the kids for safety, Ford squeezed the trigger, and uncharacteristically, said a two-word prayer.


	24. Leap!

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 16-17, 2017)

* * *

_24: Leap!_

The sullen red clouds boiled closer every second, yet in the sky behind Dipper the early-morning stars twinkled, and directly overhead a waning quarter moon balanced precariously on its lower rim, as if about to take a tumble.

Dipper knew just how it must feel.

He and Wendy had run out of places to run. Behind them the Ghost Bear, or whatever the creature was, scrambled along, and they could hear small rocks and larger boulders crashing down as it came.

Teetering on the edge of the long, long drop, Dipper felt Wendy grab his wrist. "Luis, Dipper, we gotta do it! You and me and Tachimo! When we jump, jump as far out as you can, try for ten feet! Take a deep breath, hold it, and when we jump hug yourself tight, try to go in standing." She gasped in her own deep breath and he "heard" her telepathic command: _Jump!_

It is a curious sensation, leaping from a hundred feet. Your brain screams _this is it!_ Cold panic grips your gut. Your muscles feel like they were made of iron. Unbendable.

Once you have leaped, it takes about three seconds to fall that far.

However, time considerately slows itself down. Or that's the way you perceive it. People who have been in near-fatal auto accidents report that, too: "Time slowed down. I saw the semi coming at us, and it just took forever. I remember watching the hood crumple up and the windshield shatter and blow in on us, all in slow motion."

Odd phenomenon. Put it down to the brain working extra hard and extra fast to cram in those perceptions just in case it's not going to be around much longer.

_HUG!_

Oh, yeah, Wendy had just telepathically said to hug himself. He reluctantly let go his hold—he had compulsively gripped her hand—with a parting thought: —_I love you, Wendy!_

Now he crossed his arms and grabbed his upper arms, left biceps gripped in right hand, right biceps in left hand, and stood stiff as a private at attention, his feet on nothing. It was taking too long. Why was it taking so long? If he died, how would it feel? Would it hurt much? Could he protect Wendy, somehow save her?

And then, with perhaps one second to spare, a brilliant actinic light stabbed into the water that was rushing up toward him, and then it gushed faster, like a geyser almost, a boiling hemisphere. The water rose up in a sizzling great dome to meet them!

And it was like sliding into a cushion of tiny bubbles, more and more of them, and at first the water wasn't hard at all, but soft as thick suds, slowing his fall for the last twenty feet or so, and then—oof!—his feet plunged into the real, cold water, and his legs, his torso, in over his head, water filling his ears and roaring, and he felt himself still plunging into utter darkness—

Then something very bright flashed again, and far above him he glimpsed the rippling mirror-like surface, and nearby and slightly higher than he was, he saw what had to be Wendy, hair swirled in that flashgun-spray of light, so he reached up for her ankle and missed, and as his feet hit glutinous, thick bottom mud and his knees flexed, his eardrums felt the weight of the lake and he realized just how deep he was, and he thought _Not gonna make it!_

* * *

At that wee hour of the morning, Billy Sheaffer should have been asleep, but he crouched fully awake on the floor in a corner of his room—Dipper's old room—hugging his knees, rocking. He bit on a folded clean handkerchief to keep himself from screaming. He knew they were in trouble, without knowing how he knew it. Somehow it all went through his mind, with a jumble of disconnected thoughts and discordant emotions—rage, fear, panic, sorrow.

_First thing I shoulda done, I shoulda banished that stupid bear! Or sicced Xanthar on it! Stupid purple bread loaf—_

_Why am I thinking this?_

_Wait, wait, I can still tune in on Pine Tree—got him, up really high. Running. That bear's after them! They're way too high—no, they're gonna—don't do it, kids, the fall'll kill you—they're goners!_

_Kid, kid, kid, Billy, listen, you gotta help here. Call 'em! Summon 'em! Quick, I know you got it in you! Remember when you were on the boat? Same thing again! Quick!_

For some reason, Billy momentarily saw with his one eye not his room, but deep, murky, water adrift with sizzling tiny silvery bubbles and—two limp people? Two?

_Red. Pine Tree. Quick, kid, do it quick!_

Clenching his hands—in the morning his mother would wonder what kind of nightmare made Billy tighten his fists so hard that his nails cut into his palms and left sore, bleeding crescents—he sent his thoughts northward.

Thought, as is well known, moves at least as fast as light. And if you've got a strong enough imagination, it goes so much faster that it hangs around with its hands in its pockets and when light shows up, it meets the light with an insolent grin and asks sarcastically, "What kept ya?"

"Go!" Billy thought and said aloud. "Go! Go, go, go!"

And he fainted, falling forward and clonking his forehead on the floor.

No one woke up, though. When Billy came to, a quarter of an hour later, he remembered hardly anything, but he had had a nosebleed. A little red pool the size of a silver dollar—_how do I even know that?_—had collected beneath his face. He found the handkerchief he had been biting and mopped most of it up, then went to the bathroom, wet the cloth, and scrubbed up the dried rim. He crumpled three sheets of notepaper around the stained handkerchief and buried the wad in his wastepaper can.

No sense in worrying Mom.

Wow. That was some dream, that one about Wendy and Dipper. Some . . . dream.

* * *

"Where_ are_ they, Grunkle Ford?" Mabel asked, shining the flashlight on the choppy, sparkling, bubbling surface of the lake.

"Did you get it that time?" Markheim asked.

"I got it. Look up there, see the remains?"

The remains were floating, drifting, fluttering red-orange sparks. Ever see a sheet of newspaper charred black, but lit up by a lacy network of creeping red-orange fiery embers? That was what the third blast from Ford's weapon had reduced the Ghost Bear to—not counting a scorched bear skull that thudded down the steep bluffs and crashed in the weeds on the far rim of the lake.

"Grunkle Ford! What about Wendy and Dipper!" Mabel shouted.

"There!" Markheim said, pointing urgently toward the lake.

Two forms walked out of the water. No, walked_ on_ the water. As if they had no weight. They came hand in hand. Markheim stiffened and then walked to meet them, stood with his feet barely in the lake and raised both hands and spoke to them them a brief Chinook blessing, or wish, or prayer, or something. Even he did not know.

And holding tightly to each other, the man and the woman evaporated, dissipating drifts of mist on a clearing day.

They had not been the two that Mabel wanted desperately to see. A slender Native American girl and a bearded, thickset guy, both the pale blue of old ghosts. Not Wendy. Not—

"Dipper!" Wendy screamed to the dark water. "Where are you?"

"Listen! Out on the lake!" Ford, who was never rude, rudely grabbed her flashlight and sent its beam out across the lake. Something was churning the surface white. "There they are!"

"What the heck are they _doing_?" Mabel asked. "Swimming? They better not drown, mess up all my plans!"

"They're coming this way," Ford said. "But—I don't think—no, they're definitely not swimming!"

* * *

The lake trout swarmed in dozens. The bass crowded in scores. Even a pike or two came, and literally hundreds of thousands of small fry, bream and perch, minnows and even the random frog or two. There was barely enough room to flip a fin. They had been summoned, and they came.

They came in a nearly solid shoal, they slipped beneath the two weakly struggling humans, and they bore them up to the surface and held them there, mostly by repeatedly pummeling them. Fish are not skilled at lifting. But they steadily moved their burden toward shore.

And though the fish would not even be aware of what they were doing, they were, in their own way—one might say—brave.

Think about it. A fish brought into air suffers far more than a person plunged into water. To the fish, it is as if its gills have caught fire. As if the atmosphere has gone away. As if the comforting light of the deep has been turned to a blinding, burning glare. As if Death has spitted it and is grilling it while it is still (barely) alive.

Yet some of the thousands of fish, mostly minnows, jumped completely clear of the water, dolphins in miniature, leading the way for the rest of them. Ford had kicked off his shoes and was already wading in over his waist, and Markheim, also fully clothed, was not far behind. Mabel stripped to bra and panties and ran and dived in like a porpoise sounding.

She passed Ford and grabbed Wendy's arm—Wendy was closer—and Wendy, choking, retching, said, "I think Dipper's hurt bad!"

The fish dispersed as if in an underwater explosion—they tickled Mabel's ribs as she helped Wendy, who seemed dazed, barely able to kick her legs. And then the water simmered down and all the fish had vanished into the depths.

Passing Mabel, Ford had hooked Dipper's chin in his hand, and he set off in a one-armed crawl stroke to the shore, towing his floating nephew behind him, keeping his face above the surface. Markheim, neck-deep, seized Ford's free arm and dragged him to shallow water. Mabel helped bring Wendy in, until both girls could stand and wobble, the disturbed, sucky mud giving them an unsteady footing.

"I'm OK," Wendy gasped, though she neither sounded nor looked OK in the diffused glow of the flashlight, on the grass where Mabel had dropped it. "Go. Help. Dipper."

Coughing, she staggered to shore and in the grass fell to her hands and knees and vomited about a pint of water.

Ford had rolled Dipper face-down, head turned to the side, on the grass and pressed his back, compressing his diaphragm. Dipper glurched out water, too.

"Let me, I got him!" Mabel, said, rolling her brother over. "I had CPR in PE!"

She knelt over her brother, made sure Dipper's mouth was clear, held his jaw open, pinched his nose, and sealed her lips over his. She exhaled and felt his chest rising. Did it again.

"Compress!" she said, and Wendy was there, straddling Mabel's unconscious brother, the heels of her hands on Dipper's sternum.

She pumped, counting under her breath, until she hit 30. "Two breaths!"

Mabel repeated the mouth-to-mouth. Twice.

Then Wendy began to compress again. At the eighteenth stroke, Ford, kneeling beside Dipper with two fingers on his neck, said, "Hold off. Yes, I'm getting a good pulse!"

Wendy stopped pumping. In a broken, weepy voice, Mabel was murmuring, "Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead."

All on his own, Dipper took a deep breath and coughed up more water. They rolled him on his side, and like Wendy, he threw up. But he continued breathing.

"Thank God," Markheim said.

Ford wiped Dipper's mouth with his sodden handkerchief. "Mason. Dipper—I—" he couldn't finish the sentence.

And Dipper hoarsely, weakly, rasped, "Is Wendy OK?"


	25. Landing

**Lovers' Leap**

(July 17, 2017)

* * *

_25: Landing_

Wendy was OK, though she had lost her boots. Somewhat to Dipper's annoyance, his great-uncle Ford and Mr. Markheim insisted on carrying him to the car. "Dudes," Wendy said, "I left my car way off in the country back there."

"I'm sure Soos will run you out to pick it up in his Jeep," Ford said.

"I'll drive you out!" Mabel volunteered at once.

"Can you even drive a Jeep?" Wendy asked. "Soos has a straight shift, you know."

"I'm on it!" Mabel said.

The Lincoln was a little crowded. Afterward, Dipper had trouble remembering the ride back to town. Ford and Markheim were in the front seat, he, Mabel, and Wendy in the back—and he was lying stretched across their legs, though he kept insisting, "I can sit up."

At close to three in the morning, Ford pulled up in front of the old house that was now the Gravity Falls Medical Center—it wasn't really, but the townsfolk thought that sounded much better than "Clinic." The night nurse helped get Dipper onto a gurney, and they rolled him around to the side and up a ramp.

They stripped him and gave him a stupid gown to wear. "Where's Wendy?" he kept asking. The answer was that Mabel had driven her to the Shack for dry clothes, but every time they told him that, it slipped his memory. Dr. la Fievre came in, checked him out, X-rayed his chest, and got the story of his near-drowning from Ford.

Wendy returned, in dry clothes and sneakers—she had been down to one pair of boots, and those were stuck in the glue-like mud of the lake bottom. She sat beside Dipper, holding his hand.

The doctor came back, plied his stethoscope both on Dipper and on Wendy, asked Dipper how he felt, and when Dipper complained of a sore chest, the young doctor said, "I'm not surprised. A lot of times when you have CPR, a rib or two get broken. That didn't happen, but you probably have some torn cartilage. Don't do anything too strenuous for a couple of weeks."

"No running?" Dipper asked.

"Try walking instead," the doctor said with a smile. "I want to give you an antibiotic just in case. The lake's not too bad for bacteria, but you went down deep and it sounds like you disturbed the silt at the bottom. You, too, Wendy."

He gave the shot high on Dipper's left butt cheek. Wendy pushed down her jeans and leaned on the bed, and la Fievre said, "That a pink tattoo?"

"Birthmark, I guess," Wendy said.

"Looks just like a Valentine," the doctor told her. "I'm going to jab inboard of that. Pity to shoot an arrow through a Valentine heart!"

After that, he told Dipper and Wendy they could both go, but to let him know if they developed wheezing or difficulty breathing. Wendy said, "Brought you a present, dude." Mabel had packed him underwear, cargo shorts, a tee shirt, and dry socks—but no shoes, and his sneakers were soaked. He went out to the car barefoot, carrying the wet clothes in a plastic bag.

Ford drove them back to the Shack, then drove Markheim and himself back to his and Lorena's house. "Call me immediately if there's any problem," he instructed.

Soos and Melody were up waiting. They insisted on Dipper's resting on the parlor sofa instead of making the hard climb upstairs. They asked if he needed jammies or softer pillows or more blankets. "I'm fine," he insisted. "Thanks, guys."

Soos took Mabel out for some quick pre-dawn driving lessons. Tripper came and lay warm against Dipper as he dozed.

After what seemed like a minute, he felt a hand on his forehead and opened his eyes to see Wendy's freckled face smiling at him. "Rise and shine, dude. It's nine o'clock."

"Already?" he asked. "Um. Did you get the camping stuff-?"

"Yeah, and my car. Tent's totally ruined. Everything else is OK. We both lost our phones, though. You feel like it, I'll drive us in later and we'll get replacements."

"I guess I feel OK," Dipper said, sitting up. Tripper hopped down, sat, looked up at him with that head-tilted dog stare, and then yipped.

"He says you're fine, Brobro," Mabel said. "OK, how about some dry toast crumbled up in milk for breakfast?"

"Yuck!"

"You're sick!"

"Not _that_ sick!"

"How's your chest?" Wendy asked.

Dipper rubbed it. "Still sore. But if I had to have my heart broken, you're the only one I'd want to do it."

"Oh, brother!" Mabel said, rolling her eyes. She went around and brought Dipper a tray of eggs, home fries, and sourdough toast, with coffee. That was more like it.

He'd barely finished before Mabel was back with her phone. "Hey, Dipdop, Billy Sheaffer wants to talk to you."

"He does?" Dipper took her phone—pink—and said, "Hi, Billy."

He heard Billy sob.

"Are you crying?"

"No. J-just I-I—I'm glad you're OK. Dipper—what happened?"

Well, he was going to have to go through an ordeal with Billy pretty soon now. Might as well have no secrets. Dipper said, "It started out as a treasure hunt."

* * *

**From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, and Mr. Markheim had Wendy and me go through the whole tale for them. Stan's eyes lit up and he rubbed his big hands together. "Treasure, you say?"_

_I told him yes, but half of it was lost, maybe scattered in the mud on the lake bottom, and what remained was just a little pile of gold and silver coins. "Maybe two or three thousand dollars' worth," I guessed._

_He shrugged. "Meh, let it lay if it's outa reach in that cave. I got other fish to fry." Then his eyes lit up. "Unless . . . unless my brainy brother here can rig out one of those drones to go in and pick up the dough."_

"_That might be arranged," Ford said._

"_OK, I'll give you ten per cent," Stan said generously._

_After Wendy and I had talked ourselves out, we had questions in return. What had happened to the ghosts? Mr. Markheim said he had just the vaguest memories. "I think they went on," he said. "They wouldn't or couldn't depart until they were free to go together. I think maybe Tachimo's father's spirit went on, too. I remember, um—setting them free, I suppose? And then he left me. I had a sense of peace. I think they all reached closure, I guess you'd say."_

_Markheim and Ford had pieced together a little history and a little genealogy. After the couple's leap and after the Ghost Bear had decimated the hunting party, Tachimo's father, the chief, and the women of the tribe were led out of the Valley and back to their village on the coast by Tachimo's little brother, too young to be a warrior. From somewhere the chief had picked up a small deerskin bag of pearls dropped by the fleeing couple. The two pearls that Markheim's grandmother had given him were supposedly the last remnants of that little hoard. Ford speculated that the pearls somehow gave the old chief's spirit a means of possessing Markheim._

"_I suppose the gold and silver coins in the cave also properly belong to you," Ford said._

_Markheim shook his head. "I don't want any part of it. The pearls are the only souvenir I'd like to keep. Finding out about all this—this incredible story—that's reward enough."_

"_Good attitude!" Stan said, clapping him on the back. "Now, Brainiac, about this drone—"_

"_I thought we were dead for sure when we jumped," I said. "What saved us?"_

"_Oh, man!" Mabel said. "Grunkle Ford shot that disruptor rifle right into the water as you jumped! Pew! Pew! You should've seen it!"_

"_The ray didn't heat the water," Ford said, "but it removed a pocket of the lake, and the energy spill caused the rush of water that filled the void to effervesce, creating a dome of very small bubbles, like suddenly carbonating the water. The pockets of air in the bubbles softened your landing."_

"_And then he shot the big ol' bear! Pew!" Mabel said._

"_I'm not proud of that," Ford admitted. "I'd rather study alien forms than eradicate them, but it was poised to dive after you."_

"_Is it, like, for-real dead?" Wendy asked._

"_Dead, or sent to an alternate dimension, or disassembled," Ford said. "It's over, anyway."_

"_What were Spanish pirates doing this far north?" I asked._

"_We may never know," Ford said. "Perhaps they rounded Cape Horn. Perhaps they crossed the Isthmus on foot and constructed their craft on the shores of the Pacific, meaning to attack Spanish coastal shipping along the shores of Mexico. I fear some mysteries are doomed to remain mysteries."_

"_What was the deal with the fish?" Mabel asked._

"_Um—Billy did that," I told her. "He claims that a voice in his head told him to summon them to help us, the way he called fish when Soos took him fishing. They sort of held us on the surface and pushed us toward shore."_

"_Remarkable," Ford said. "A—voice in his head?"_

_I nodded. "It's who you're thinking of. Strange, though—Billy said he can never stand to go fishing again. It's like—they're still two people."_

"_We'll talk about that later," Ford told me._

_That afternoon I persuaded Soos I was OK, and Wendy and I drove into town to get new phones. And we bought her a new pair of boots, and got ourselves a new tent, a little bigger than our old one._

"_Dude," she said as she drove us back, "we are totally gonna go camping successfully at least one time before the summer's over!"_

"_I'm looking forward to it," I said._

_When we got back to the Shack, Mabel, Teek, and Tripper were playing ball. "Want to join us?" Mabel yelled._

"_We're both walking wounded, Mabes," Wendy told her. "We're all achy and everything, so we're just gonna go inside and comfort one another."_

_And for the rest of the afternoon—that's just what we did._

* * *

The End


End file.
